African Currents

Redefining Education for Sub-Saharan Africa's Growth & Prosperity

Africa's working-age population [15-64] is expected to double by 2050, yet African nations' spending on education is low, yielding slow progress in educational outcomes, an IMF report from April said. Thus, countries on the continent should increase their education budgets to attain universal enrollment by 2030, the IMF concluded.
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The West's investment initiatives in the field of education disregard Africa's indigenous educational models and have the ultimate goal of keeping the continent "in the perpetual space of inferiority," Ferdinand Chipindi, an associate professor of educational administration and policy studies at the School of Education, University of Zambia, tells African Currents, heaping the blame entirely on colonial legacy.

"The African continent has grappled for a long time with the effects of colonialism. The entire continent, I think, with the possible exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, operates colonial-bequeathed educational systems, which were inherited after the colonial encounter," Professor Chipindi says.

To ensure that Africa's educational systems do not "perpetuate Western hegemony," the scholar proposes ways of making education on the continent reflect truly African values.

"One of the ways is that African nations ensure that investments in education that are meant for the African sub-Saharan continent [are] earmarked to promote indigenous knowledge and self-determination by doing the following things, for instance: decolonizing the curriculum and incorporating African histories, cultures, and perspectives to challenge the dominant narratives that are part of the colonial bequest system; the revitalization of language in order to teach and promote local languages to reclaim linguistic diversities on the continent," Chipindi notes.

To find out what else our guest had to say, tune in to the African Currents podcast, brought to you by Sputnik Africa.
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