Critical Indigenous African Education and Knowledge Itibari M. Zulu

The issues raised in this paper (presented in June 2001 at UCLA in partial satisfaction of a

graduate course requirement) address a preliminary African centered approach to the question

of indigenous African education and knowledge in contemporary society, and thus: calls for

critical discourse regarding its utility; suggest that indigenous African theoretical and

philosophical discussion should consider an Afrocentric focus; discuss how indigenous African

education and knowledge and how it should work to resurrect itself from invisibility in the

history of education; there is a need for a critical corrective theory in African education;

acknowledge that education and knowledge existed in Africa before Islamic or Western

schooling; the story of indigenous and modern African education and knowledge should not

remain dormant in untrue assumptions; provides examples of the usefulness of indigenous

knowledge via Nigeria (Opata 1998); suggest that there is a need for new lines of

communication between schooling and indigenous education; examines via Semali (1999) the

distinctions between indigenous African knowledge and other forms of knowledge and the

obstacles to its implementation; review the question of African writing history; wherein

misconception prevails that Africa was not familiar with literature and art before contact with

the Western world; list the many scripts in Africa as examples of a literary tradition;

acknowledge that in the arena of science and technology historically and presently, Africa is

generally unrecognized or extremely discounted; there is a myth that an indigenous scientific or

technological community did not exist in traditional African society which illustrates the

complexity of the modern struggle for African science concerning articulation, cultural ethos

and scientific principles; there is a need for a full investigation of the history of African science

and science education; Africa and African education need a critical examination of its mission,

goals and objectives that moves beyond the questions of select donor agencies and narrow

national issues; African education needs a critical theory to extract the best of indigenous

African thought and practice; and in conclusion, this work outlines some ideas for developing a

critical African education theory, and a progressive Pan African agenda via the directional

insight of the philosophy of the African Renaissance movement and the African Union.