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African Universities in Crisis and the Promotion of a Democratic Culture: The Political Economy of Violence in African Educational Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Francis B. Nyamnjoh  and
Nantang B. Jua
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Abstract:

This article argues that education in Africa, from colonial times to the postcolony, has been the victim of various forms of violence, the most devastating of which is the violence of cultural and political conversion: externally and internally driven initiatives and processes intended to domesticate, harness, transform, alter, remodel, adapt, or reconstruct Africa and Africans through schools and universities to suit new ways of being, seeing, doing, and thinking. As a result of such violence, educational systems have privileged mimicry and transformed epistemologies informed by partial theories to metanarratives of arrogance, superiority, and intolerance of creative differences. Even when clear alternatives are imagined to the current irrelevance in education, economic difficulties render their realization extremely difficult. Repressive states have perpetuated and capitalized upon this predicament by manipulating desperate academics into compliance and complicity with mediocrity. This article examines some epistemological consequences of such alienation and irrelevance and looks at their implications for theorizing Africa. It calls for a global conversation of universities and scholars in which Africa participates on its own terms, with the interests and concerns of ordinary Africans as its guiding principle.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Cet article cherche à montrer que l'éducation en Afrique, de la période coloniale à la post-colonie, a été victime de diverses formes de violence, dont la plus dévastatrice fut la violence de la conversion culturelle et politique: c'est à dire des initiatives et des processus conduits aux niveaux externe et interne et destinés à domestiquer, exploiter, transformer, modifier, remodeler, adapter ou reconstruire l'Afrique et les africains par le biais des écoles et des universités afin de les conformer aux nouvelles formes d'être, de voir, de faire et de penser. Le résultat d'une telle violence est que les systèmes éducatifs ont privilégié le mimétisme et les épistémologies appropriées informées par des théories partiales, et les ont transformées en méta-narrations d'arrogance, de supériorité, et d'intolérance à l'égard des différences créatives. Même quand sont imaginées des alternatives claires pour faire face à l'ineptie de la situation actuelle dans le domaine de l'éducation, les difficultés d'ordre économique rendent leur application extrêmement difficile. Les états répressifs ont perpétué et capitalisé sur cette situation fâcheuse en manipulant les universitaires désespérés et en les forçant à se plier et se rendre complices de la médiocrité. Cet article examine quelques unes des conséquences épistémologiques d'une telle aliénation et d'une telle ineptie, et se penche sur leurs implications pour la théorisation de l'Afrique. Il appelle à une conversation globale entre les universités et les universitaires à laquelle participerait l'Afrique en ses propres termes, avec pour principe directeur les intérêts et les préoccupations de l'africain moyen.

Type
Introduction
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 45 , Issue 2: African Universities in Crisis and the Promotion of a Democratic Culture , September 2002 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2002

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