Africa is the youngest continent in the world. As of 2022, around 40% of its population was 15 years and younger, compared to a global average of 25%. The potential of its youth has been hailed as the key to its development and the world's next frontier to growth. But what defines an African education system, and how can it live up to its purpose and responsibility?
Traditional African education
The origins of formal African education may be found in Egypt, where papyrus was used to retain accurate information and develop study systems for the privileged elite. More common, however, was decentralised, informal, and vocational learning. Before European colonisation, communities across the continent took a holistic approach to education, including manual and intellectual labour in the form of apprenticeships of younger people with elders and didactic storytelling. In the Pre-colonial era, Africans developed skills relevant to their survival, spirituality, and societal norms.
Histories and values, such as conformity, obedience, endurance, and integrity, were passed on through oral traditions and festive rituals. For example, initiation rites commonly ushered young people into adulthood, usually through a temporary separation from the community, which led to a symbolic change. During the ceremonies, individuals often received secret knowledge, new privileges or power to help them fulfil their responsibilities. The training focused on cooperation and collaboration and promoted the perfection of knowledge and skills before being transmitted to posterity. Essentially, education was intended to transform individuals into useful members of their societies who can live in their natural environment.
Education under colonialism
Europe's colonisation of Africa disrupted traditional life and forced communities into a new foreign order. As a result, their education systems were destroyed to a large extent. Under the pretence of wanting to "civilise" Africans, the colonisers superimposed their knowledge and values on the colonised. They intended to dehumanise Africans by denying their history and denigrating their achievements and capacities. Oral histories and localised collective learning were systematically attacked and rendered useless in a world that gives power to individual material possessions.
Teaching through verbal memory and lived experience depended on strong communal ties and a clear sense of identity. In missionary schools, African spiritualities, rituals, and languages were banned, undermining traditional holistic systems at the expense of a more clearly defined form of structured learning. Colonial education was highly compartmentalised: most Africans were only taught what they needed to know to perform tasks for the coloniser. This system left the majority uneducated and isolated from their indigenous knowledge.
A privileged minority was encouraged to attend western schools, where they were indoctrinated and removed from their traditions. The establishment of physical schools ended the practice of informal learning and enabled colonisers to dictate who could access which knowledge: necessities were taught in simple schools, and higher European education was taught in private schools. This system is still prevalent in Africa, where elites send their offspring to private and international schools while the rest attend governmental schools that have not revised their curricula since the formal end of colonialism.
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Contemporary challenges and opportunities
When African states gained their formal independence, many traditional ways of learning had been lost or rendered futile in the post-colonial era. The challenge of new education systems was to enhance national self-identity and cultural autonomy while contributing to economic growth. The latter seemed only possible by following western models of learning, so Western development models could be attained. For the most part, this has left African education in a precarious situation albeit its many unique assets.
African multilingualism
The languages taught and spoken at school are relics of the colonial era. Many children, especially those in rural settings, enter all-English, French or Portuguese language schools with little prior knowledge. Research shows that this affects their ability to learn effectively. Instead, children should be encouraged to be taught in their mother tongue for at least six years to avoid knowledge gaps and increase the speed at which they learn and understand the material. Similarly, renowned Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o believes that tapping into the continent's linguistic wealth will give students a strong advantage.
He proposes a triple language policy: "Mother tongue, lingua franca and then French or English or whatever. That is how we are going to decolonise Africa because that also creates an attitude." Instead of teaching children that knowledge comes from the outside, learning in their own languages will allow them to build confidence in their heritage and identity. Studies have shown that student reading comprehension significantly improves when culturally relevant materials/resources are used in the classroom.
Multilingual students are known to have stronger cognisance, working memories, and attention spans. They exhibit more creativity and are better at multitasking. Realising that localised African education systems can equip the youth with unique tools to access their maximum brain capacity; some countries have set up programmes to decolonise their curricula.
For example, in Nigeria, which speaks over 500 local languages but mainly teaches English, a pilot project is currently introducing the most widely-spoken languages, Haussa, Yoruba and Igbo, in primary schools. In Senegal, French is the module of instruction – a language in which only one-third of the population speaks fluently. Schools have now started introducing bilingual classes in French and one other local language. In Mozambique, an approach is planned to open the schools to 23 different languages.
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Questioning African values and colonial attitudes
Colonisers divided African societies into elites and common people. Disunited approaches to education are a primary example of this, with Africa's middle and upper classes preferring European languages and attitudes as the common mode of instruction. European education triggered a clash of values: communal learning vs individualistic education.
Not all traditional pillars could easily be incorporated into western style schooling systems. In pre-colonial Africa, the teacher was viewed as a custodian of knowledge by the recipients of their training, and what was taught was never questioned. This arrangement was better suited for practical training and collective peer study, contingent upon mutual respect between teachers and students.
However, in modern African education systems, which take an individualistic approach, abuse of power goes unchecked and is considered an "African problem" concerning those who cannot afford private schools. Students often complain that having to respect their elders with no exception stops them from speaking out against the violence and abuse they are subjected to in academic institutions. This creates a disdain for African values because they do not live as intended. The revival of modes of collective peer study and mutual respect will allow students to take pride in their education system. Girls' education is another issue that falls through the cracks. Colonialists knew that to teach a woman was to teach a community and had no interest in pushing for girls' education.
At the same time, outdated African attitudes often result in parents sacrificing their daughter's education in favour of her support at home. If every girl in sub-Saharan Africa completed primary education, the female mortality rate would decrease by 70%. To become more efficient and return to their indigenous structures, African education systems must reevaluate how ideas of gender roles can be decolonised and adapted in the 21st-century post-colony.
Governmental responsibility
A recent UNESCO report finds that "in addition to socioeconomic challenges, the limited availability of good quality textbooks, lack of proper teacher support, inadequate teacher training and provision of teacher guides, limited progress in the introduction of home languages in teaching and insufficient school feeding programmes, are key factors that have resulted in poor learning outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa." All of these factors are governmental responsibilities.
Teachers must be given better support to fulfil their traditional roles of nurturing and passing on communal knowledge that they consider relevant. In addition, governments have to step up for all their citizens, including girls and adults. Seychelles are a great example of successful government-coordinated education. In the 1980s, the government decided to take education from missionary hands and make it compulsory, public, and free of charge. Primary schools teach in Creole before gradually introducing English, and the literacy rate has risen to 94%. It is the only African country to be ranked among the top 50 systems worldwide, placing 43rd overall.
A hybrid for the future
The fact that a lack of education undermines all other developmental efforts puts Africa's future at a crossroads: will countries use their indigenous knowledge and languages to prepare their youth for their role as trailblazers, or will young generations be stagnant and unable to access their potential? A first and crucial step to changing classroom practice is to revise curricula into hybrid systems that combine traditional African learning with global education to ensure literacy, numeracy, and contextually relevant studying.
Mending linguistic fragmentation, class divides, and paternalistic attitudes towards girls are challenges that education systems must address. Finally, if governments invest in bringing back the practice of hands-on training within communities alongside academic study, African students will be ready to take on the world.