African Education
1
When the Royal Niger company financed by Britsh Lord Carvenon transfered
Frederick
Lugard from Buganda to lead the invasion on this territory , now called Nigeria,
they were backed by a Military-Industrial complex of of Post-Feudal Britain.
Feudalism is basically an arrangement where a landowner rules over peasants
that
earn their living from tilling the Lord's land (while muttering the Lord's
prayer).
The feudal lord had ample resources to invest in military technological research
to
support his Army. Industrial Revolution was the siamese twin of military
revolution.
There was no difference between industry and military.
By 1905, Frederick Lugard, created a Nigerian military force that
was designed to be
a backward extension of the British Army; Military without Industry. That
is why the colonial administration ensured that education in Nigeria [and the rest of Africa]
would be of literary orientation to ensure that Africa would be big for
nothing, reading to nowhere.
Check very well; post-colonial Africa was taken over by people
who were never chanced to understand the workings of an industrial economy;
Leopold Senghor with his Negritude,
Kwame Nkurumah with his literary Pan-Africanism,
Nnamdi Azikiwe and his beautiful speeches. The general belief in the minds of Africans was that
anybody who reads plenty of white man's [literature] books was to return as a God,to do wonders with words. One by one, these rulers had no choice but to steer Africa into the European Lion's economic den.
Till today, the purpose of African education has not changed.
People (incuding North Africans) acquire education to be European in consumption but not in production capacity. The role model for a female student is more of Mary Magdalene,less of Marie Curie. For the male student; William Sakespeare rather than William (Bill)Gates.
Electronics Science developed while Africa was still in colonial
shackles. The concept of made-in-Africa still eludes Africans.
2
In Nigeria, right from the primary school level, kids are taught to aspire
to be a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant or a politician. They are taught the
folk songs and folklore of europe and an identity is set for them to aspire to: an European.
There are basically 2 kinds of Primary schools. There are the 'good schools'
that are very
expensive and with emphasis on learning english (actually, english for foreign
students).
There are the 'bad schools' that do not give as much exposure to the literary
facet of european life. Pupils of the 'bad' schools see those of the 'good' schools as being "oyinbo" (europeanized), but on a closer examination of the purpose of both schools,the 2 schools are producing wretchedly europeanized negroes. African language speaking medieval european children in black skin.
The kids are taught that it is okay to profess Islam or Christianity, that
is, to follow the dictates of Europeans or Arabs. Psychologically the children develop an affection for white skin and start to tease each other for being too black in complexion; the colour complex sets in.
Anything that is original
in Africanity is presented to them as evil and as best exotic.
All the plunderers of Africa and the Americas are presented as Great Discoverers.
They are deceived that the dominance of european power is from kneeling
down to say prayers to a big white man sitting on the clouds. The kids are
never taught about the european military-industrial complex.
Their school uniforms are designed to get
dirty easily, so the child develops a distate for any endeavour of practical nature. The Tropical Rain Forest is presented
as a dangerous no-go area, to make it impossible for them to tap its resources.
For the most part of their lives, they will never know why they are backward
in capacity because their underdevelopment began in the [missionary/koranic]school.
Arab/Islamic countries are wondering why their poverty. Why
are they economic dependants of Europe, depending on the productivity of Europeans. A way of life that reduces one's capacity to explore one's gift of nature should also shield one from the temptation of being a consumer-non-productive-input society.
It is true that African's and Arabs have gone through coloniztion, but the day-to-day way of living that looks down on productive endeavour and praises the medieval european
way of
life but cannot provide a balance between consumption and
production, has to change.
Medieval europeans believed that there was a god in the sky
to be held responsible
for all actions, reactions and consequenses. In pre-Revolution France, people
prefered to invest
in Chieftaincy titles and Monastries than in machines that produce wealth.
Status
was granted more on hereditary than on ability. Please read more about the
European
Dark Ages. You wiil see that Africans accelerated european development by
becoming
underdeveloped.
3
Nature is the storehouse for human beings to exist.
From hunting-gathering to
agricuture, to mineral extraction , to manufacturing. Human beings owe their
living
to their ability to extract their living from nature. In every community
of people,
this ability is passed down to younger generation through Education
. This inherited
knowledge is the basis for development.
The issues of Africa and Development has to be tackled from the historical
process
that led to the continent's present state of underdevelopment.
Arabs used to tell Africans "Do not worry, we no longer bind you with chains,
you
are developing". Europeans used to tell Africans "Do not worry, you were
created
as the Third World, you are developing away from our economic shackles".
Development is basically an increased ability to extract a living from nature.
One
characteristic of development is interdependence. For example,
instead of one person doing all the farming, making farming implements and
fishing, this activities become the specializations of 3 different groups
of people
for increased productivity.
Money comes in as a medium of
interdependence of people who
are specialized in different economic endeavours. Thus the value of this
money
will be affected by the success of interdependent productive economic activities.
This money could be represented by an object that is produced, let us
say Gold.
So where does paper money come in? Instead of carrying about so much gold,
the gold is warehoused and a receipt is issued for the gold. The paper money
becomes simply an instrument of debt. The origin of money is extraction
of
living from Nature.
So why is such a large continent
unable to survive from nature without
looking from paper money from across the Ocean? In any developing society,
if something interrupts the transmission of survival know-how from
generation to generation , then the society starts to become backward.
for the past 500 years, Africa has been the honey-pot
of Europe's development.
China was was an economic superpower at one time but their contact with European
trade led to their stagnation. gold was an accepted medium of transaction
to the Chinese, because of its legitimate scarcity. But Europeans were obtaining
free gold from the Americas by transporting slaves from Africa to go and
work the mines of the dispossesed Native Americans. With this gold, the Europeans
were able to control the economy of China for the purpose of Europe.
Back to Education, what should students in
present day Nigerian schools
be taught? They should be taught different ways of extracting their living
from
nature. Colonialism ensured that the education given in schools would produce
Africans(including Arab North Africans) who can mostly be Civil Servants,
providing auxiliary services to European companies that are extracting
the living of Europe from Africa's nature. African students were introduced
to a money economy without knowing what wealth is about. To ensure
that African students would be at best Civil Servants, the Education was
designed to be Missionary,that is to give a metaphysical outlook of the physical
world. So, the simple art and science of extracting a living from nature
is made to look so mysterious for an African.
As Africans are begging at embassies to leave the
country , Europeans and Asians
are rushing in to Nigeria through the Airport.
The strength of the
Malaysian economy is due to the Production Culture of the
Ethnic Chinese, and not the indigenous people. It is possible
for immigrants to be the bedrock of a Nation's development. Africans who emigrate are limited
by
their root educational formation to certain activities. They may be wonderful
Medical
Doctors, but Mechanistic medicine has to exist side by side with the production
of machines,so they find it difficult to practise when the return. They may
be wonderful Engineers, but limited to the Mathematical Research aspect
of Technology, more useful for industrialised countries . Their root education
is essentially Literature.