Education

Community based education - Prior to interference by Europeans, the education systems of most African communities and kingdoms were fully meshed with their cultures. Community training emphasized social responsibility, job orientation, political participation, and spiritual and moral values. Local education combined physical and intellectual training, character building and manual activities. Children learned by participating in ceremonies and rituals, imitating and reciting, activities such as farming, fishing, and hunting. Recreational activities, such as wrestling and swimming, provided physical training. Intellectual training included the study of history, poetry, reasoning & judgment, mathematical skills, geography, architecture, engineering, local technologies, climate, agricultural science, medicine, and the relationship between the natural world and human life.

Memory building and observation were the most invaluable teaching tools in African communities. Fundamental skills and values were learned through the processes of observation, imitation, and participation. Indigenous education systems were comprehensive systems of education that "transmitted relevant skills, knowledge, values and attitudes for the development of the individual and his or her society" (Ashley). Avb importantly, they were democratic systems oriented towards and egalitarian society.

Several events led to the dismantling and destruction of the functioning traditional education and the imposition of a European formal education system. European colonialists held the Eurocentric notion that Africa was a dark continent without history or knowledge. The imposition of the European education system is also rooted in the capitalist theory, which was and is still (something) in European languages. Colonialists did not include African history, culture or knowledge in their colonial education curricula. After decolonialization in the 1950s and 60s, the emerging African elites continued to follow the European models for education. World pressure for modernization was mounting, and the ruling elite believed the only way to modernize was to continue with a European formal education system.

Current education crisis - However, the imposed formal education system is not working in the majority of African nations due to economic deficiencies and the failure of these systems to adequately incorporate African culture and knowledge into the curricula. In many parts of Africa, there is a drop out rate of 70% before students reach 6th grade. Partially due to a funding problem. After structural adjustment programs of the 1980s and 90s, funding to schools dropped considerably. Mismanagement and misallocation combined with inadequate funding contribute to the educational crisis in Africa and result in insufficient infrastructure, books, desks, teacher's pay, and so on. General poverty makes formal education an expensive choice for parents, and even more so when governments are unable to provide books, buildings or teacher's pay.

Lack of funding is not the only problem with African formal education systems. Another, perhaps even greater problem is that these systems exclude traditional African education methods, cultural values, and social structure. Parents alienated from their children's educations, especially parents who were excluded from the system themselves. Another result is that students that make it through the system often find it difficult to use or apply the knowledge they have learned in their own societies, and as a result, often leave their nations to seek employment elsewhere.

The results of an education system that does not work for everyone…Today, around half of adults in Africa are illiterate, and the majority of these are women. While reading and writing are not necessary for a fulfilling and productive live, illiteracy is a handicap in a world where information exchange is based on the written word. As global trade increases, illiteracy can put people at a disadvantage it keeps them from realizing the full value of their products. And, perhaps even more disturbingly, the vast majority of students who do make it through the education system leaves or wants to leave Africa to find work elsewhere. This is causing a major loss of human capital that is very detrimental to the future of the continent.

Even though we have lost our traditional education systems and there is no turning away from the current European based system, there is still a chance to make the system work by both providing economic opportunities to the students, such as purchasing books, bikes to go to school, remodeling old schools, encouraging schools and the educational ministers to redefine the curricula to incorporate and reflect African culture and practical needs, and finally foster an economic system that attracts educated Africans to remain in Africa to help his/her people. GACE is providing all of the above at a small scale, hoping that others will follow.

School Supplies & Scholarships Project

Bicycles for Education Project