OSLO SUMMER SCHOOL - NETREED
NETREED Conference at Rainbow Gausdal Høifjellshotell, January 7-9 2002
Dennis Banda:
INDIGENOUS EDUCATION, AN ANSWER TO EDUCATION FOR ALL (EFA)? THE CASE OF ZAMBIA WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE CHEWA PEOPLE OF THE EASTERN PROVINCE.
ABSTRACT:
The paper focuses on how indigenous education can help in the drive for Education For All (EFA). Particular reference will be made to the indigenous education as practised by the Chewa speaking people of the Eastern region of Zambia before the imposition of Western schooling by the missionaries and colonialists. The paper will try to look at the background and goals of Education For All. An effort will be made to look at how many developing nations like Zambia, have tried to implement EFA interventions and with what results
As a way of establishing the missing link in the achievement of Education For All, implementation problems will be looked at. This will help in showing that instead of abruptly uprooting indigenous education and condemn it as barbaric and primitive, western schooling should have been established on the principles of the indigenous education, which was already established and valued. Through the organisation structure, socialisation institutions, methodology, reinforcement mode of assessment and access to indigenous education, this paper will make an effort to show that indigenous education was indeed, by nature, education for all as it did not have the pyramidal structure, a common characteristic of western schooling.
In conclusion, the paper will try to suggest how indigenous education can be mainstreamed in to the current basic education curriculum, especially with the coming of community schools, in order to achieve relevant education for all. Areas that need more research in indigenous education will be identified and so will be the lessons that donors and all those involved in this Education for All (EFA) drive require accomplishing the desired goals of EFA.
CONTENTS.
1. GENERAL BACKGROUND TO THE COUTRY OF STUDY: ZAMBIA
2. OVERVIEW OF EDUCATION IN ZAMBIA
3. EDUCATION FOR ALL (EFA) AND ITS GOALS
4. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EDUCATION FOR ALL (EFA) GOALS IN ZAMBIA
5. THE INDIGENOUS EDUCATION .
6. THE INDIGENOUS EDUCATION OF THE CHEWA PEOPLE IN ZAMBIA
a. ORGANIZATION CHART
b. TABOOS AND THEIR CONCEQUENCES
c. SUPERSTITIONS AND BELIEFS
d. SUBJECTS COVERAGE OF INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
7. INDIGENOUS EDUCATION AND RESEARCHERS IN THE EFA FIELD
a. LESSONS TO FUTURE RESEARCHERS
b. LESSONS TO DONOR NATIONS.
8. CONCLUSION
9. REFERENCES.
a.ELECTRONIC REFERENCE
1. GENERAL BACKGROUND TO THE COUNTRY OF STUDY: ZAMBIA.
Zambia is a land locked country surrounded by eight countries namely: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Angola (see map). It is a large country but sparsely populated country. It covers a land area of 752, 614 square kilometres. The total population is estimated at 10.7 million and this gives a population density of 11 persons per square kilometre
A major social characteristic of Zambia is that it is multiethnic and by extension multicultural as well. There are seven major languages and seventy-three dialects. The diversity of ethnic groups entails existence of several traditions and cultural practices which have their implications on the education of children. It also entails the existence of several indigenous education systems that these groups of people practised. This was long before western education systems were introduced by the missionaries and the colonialists. Traces of indigenous education have remained in people’s way of life to this date and have a bearing on the western education offered to the children, be it negative or positive.(Zambia: Report.2000.1)
Data on educational attainment from the 1980 statistics gives a picture that shows that Zambia is in the throes of an educational crisis: a crisis of access; where nothing meaningful is being done to bring the benefits of literacy to about one third of the adult population who continue to suffer from the handicap of illiteracy, where a significant number of children cannot find school places, at least until they are almost at the age of puberty, and where another significant proportion must leave school before completing the data from the 1990 statistics showed that rural illiteracy rate was 50% of the rural population aged 15 years and above while urban illiteracy at 31.5%. Thus illiteracy is more of a rural than urban problem and female than male problem. (Re Zambia’s report 1999). Primary course and hence almost certainly lapse back into illiteracy; (Kelly, 1999). It is well to note that human scale of this education deprivation amidst cries for education for all. Kelly P 195 (1980) reports still under crises of access that 35, 000 seven year olds find no place each year in Grade 1; 15,000 children aged 11 or 12 must leave school each year on completion of Grade 4; during the seven year primary cycle some 10,000 girls just disappear from the educational system and some 600,000 children in the age range of 7 to 14 are not in schools, largely because there is no place for them.
When these figures are cumulated back across years, it is clear that Zambia is far from the 1990 point on goals for education for all.
The Education system currently in practice is from 7-5-4 to 9-3-4 which means 9 years of Basic Education, 3 years for Senior Secondary School or high school to 4 years of University Educational (though some professional courses like Medicine and Engineering vary from this pattern as they require 5 to 8 years) This system endeavours to preserve and promote the rich culture, values and heritage manifested in the diverse constituency of the Zambian Nation.
2. OVER VIEW OF EDUCATION IN ZAMBIA
European Missionaries pioneered education but soon, Colonial Administration began to show interest when the European Missionaries came to Sub-Sahara Africa and now Zambia in particular, they assumed that the people did not have any educational programme. Bogonko (1992:1) observes that they called local people “Primitive, uncultured and barbaric: He further observes that the Missionaries also felt that Africans had not system of education, as their young were notoriously ignorant.
Otiende et al (1992) makes an observation that when Missionaries first introduced Western Education their consumption was that the Africans were uneducated, implying that they were “bringing education” to the natives where they settled first. These views by the missionaries were, unfortunately wrong as they were based on erroneous grounds of defining education in very narrow and restrictive terms, equating it with literacy, numerically and generally schooling in Western terms.
Fafunwa (1982) and Bray etal (1986) observes that every society, simple or complex, has its own system of training and educating its youth. In their view, education for good life has been one of the most persistent concerns of men throughout history, what may differ from place to place, nation to nation, or people to people are goals and the method of approach. Fafunwa (1982) notes that the Greek idea of an educated man was one” who was mentally and physically well balanced.” The Romans on the other hand placed emphasis on oratorical and military training. In old Africa, the Warrior, the hunter, the nobleman the man who combined good character with a specific skill was considered to be a well educated and well integrated citizen of his community (Makori: 2001)
George Makori states that the entry of Western education significantly altered the prevailing status quo’ if meant that a new order had been introduced which in effect required not only radical adjustments but also a new way of dealing with each other, a new language to be mastered and disruption of social order. (Makori: 2001).
It is worthy to note that many of the people who sent their children to those missionary schools were the early converts of the new faith and were ostracised from their communities. They were also treated with hatred because they took their children to the alien school and forsake their indigenous education.
Over the years, western education has grown in Zambia as elsewhere in Africa and this development has come along with its challenges. These include equity, equality access, relevance and cost of learning materials, just to mention but a few. These challenges have had a bearing on the provision of universal primary education. These challenges have made many educationists (Ngulube (1989); Odora (1994)
Smith (1943); Birgit (2000) to try to bring out the relevance of indigenous education for a consideration of mainstreaming many of its aspect in the western schooling curricula. These and many efforts made by individual developing nations are aimed at finding a lasting solution to the provision of Education for All (EFA) as stipulated in many world conferences on education.
3. EDUCATION FOR ALL (EFA) AND ITS GOALS.
The Education for All (EFA) Conference at Jointien, Thailand, in March 1990, attended by participants from 155 countries and representatives of 160 Governmental and no Governmental Agencies was not the first occasion when the rights for all people to an education were affirmed. Fifty years earlier, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) proclaimed Free and Compulsory education to a basic human rights. Since then, there have been many high level international conferences making commitments to Fundamental human rights – Education. These are: 1990 World Conference on Education For All (EFA). Jointien Thailand) 1990 World Summit for Children (New York, USA); 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, Egypt); 1995 World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, Denmark): 1995 5th World Conference on Women (Beijing, China); 1996 OECD, Shaping the 21st Century, 2000 World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal) (Oxfam 2000).
In all these conferences, the declarations made among other things are universal primary education by 2015 and delimitation of gender disparity in primary and secondary by 2005. The statistics, which were in existence at the time of the 1990 Jointien Conference concerning the illiteracy levels were, proof enough to see the gravity of the crisis in education particularly among developing nations like Zambia.
“In 1990” some 130 million children were out of school. 81 Million of them were girls. In Sub Sahara Africa, two out the three women are illiterate” (UNESCO 2002).
From such statistics one would be right to conclude that the World Conferences on education and in particular, the 1990 Joimtien one, were organised in response to the wide spread concern over the inadequacy and deterioration of education system during the 1980s and over the millions of children and adults who remain illiterate and poorly prepared for life in societies. This was supported by the agreements made by all in attendance to take the necessary steps to universalise primary education and massively reduce illiteracy before the end of the decade, as well as to:
(Expand early childhood education
(Improve learning achievement
(Reduce the male-female literacy gap
(Expand basic education opportunities for youth and adults
(Use all available communication channels to promote knowledge, skills and values for
better living (Zambia Report (200.1); Kelly (1999 – 192 –194)
4. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EDUCATION FOR ALL (EFA) GOALS IN ZAMBIA
The task of translating the vision of Education for All was initially undertaken by the EFA
National Task Force. The Task Force comprised Government Ministries, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Bilateral and multilateral Donor agencies and the University of Zambia. The role of the Task Force was to initiate EFA activities and programmes and to monitor their development after 1993 EFA decision making process was carried out by different committees organs which were Governmental, Non-Governmental, private and Community based. The following are examples of these:-
i) National Steering Committee for the programme for the Advancement of Girls Education (PAGE) at Ministry of Education Headquarters, which has been managing all activities, related to PAGE.
ii) The Department of Child Affairs in the Ministry of Sport Youth and Child Development Co-ordinated activities related to policy on early childhood care Education and Development.
iii) Zambia Education Rehabilitation project (ZERP) under the Ministry of Education undertook policy research, construction rehabilitation of schools; procurement and distribution of educational materials, curriculum review and Education Management Training (EMT).
iv) The Ministry of Education has established the Basic Education Sub – Sector Investment Programme (BESSIP) in which it works with co-operating partners. (Footnote: BESSIP see Smith ET at (1998). Report of a Joint Appraisal mission. Zambia’s Basic Education Sub-Sector Investment Programme (BESSIP) Centre for International Education. OSLO).
v) The National Steering Committee on Adult Literacy (Later renamed Zambia Alliance For Literacy) Under the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services co-ordinated the implementation of the National literacy campaign from 1995 all literacy activities have been co-ordinated by the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services.
vi) Co-ordination of information, education and communication was done by a sub committee of Inter-Agency Technical Committee on population (ITCP) in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
vii) Educational broadcasting was carried out by Educational Broadcasting Services (EBS) in the Ministry of Education.
viii) Zambia Community Schools Secretariat 9ZCSS) Co-ordinated policy and activities of NGOs involved in running community schools.
ix) Educational activities of the civil society were loosely co-ordinated by NGOCC.
x) Zambia Pre School Association closely co-ordinated Early Childhood care and Development activities.
xi) The Private Schools and College Association (PRISCA) co-ordinated the activities of the private sector. (Zambia Report EFA 2000.8)
These efforts stated above had a great impact especially on enrolment as seen on table 1 (P7 Zambian Report) this improvement in that the enrolment has had an impact on girls’ education as well. The Zambian report on EFA (2000) indicates that current data from the Ministry of Education statistics show that the enrolment of girls in schools has improved to the point where there seems to be very little disparity on enrolments between boys and girls in primary schools in all the religions of the country as seen in table 2 (10).
Despite many interventions put in place by the governments of developing nations in an effort to achieve the Jointien EFA goals, Universal primary Education is still a dream yet to be realised. Ten years after the Jointien Conference Oxfam reports;
”A lost decade…To day, a decade after the rallying cry of Education for All, there are still 125 million children who never attend school. Another 150 million children start school, but drop out before they can read or write” (Oxfam 2000. 4)
Zambia like many other Sub – Sahara African Countries has had her on share in the failure to achieve the EFA goals. Oxfam report on Zambia states:
“Zambians children going to school since 1994 have shown some decline especially for girls. The 2005 target the Government has set for achieving universal Primary Education to be reached would imply an increase in enrolment of 96,000 children each year over the period 1995 – 2005” (Oxfam: 200. 28).
This revelation is supported by the 1990 Census, which provides the following on school enrolment aged 7-13, 830, 000 were actually attending school in 1990 thus, the net enrolment ratio was 59.9%. The remaining 656, 000 were not in school representing a total of 41.1% and 327,000 of these were girls. In the rural areas, 501,000 school – age children were not attending school and 247,000 of them were girls in the urban areas, 164,000 school – aged children were not attending school and 85,000 of them girls.”
( Kelly. 1994:31).
Reasons for failing to achieve the EFA goals are many but Kelly (1999.195) summarises them into four types of crisis:
A crisis of Access (where little or nothing meaningful is being done to bring the benefits of literacy to about one third of the adult population who continue to suffer from the handicap of illiteracy, where another significant proportion must leave school before completing the primary course and hence almost certainly lapse back into illiteracy.)
A crisis of Quality (where the schools are failing to achieve the objectives society has established for them, above all those of importing basic communication numeracy and thinking skills.
A crisis of Credibility (Where questions are being asked about the role of education in development and its function in the entrenchment of social inequalities and injustices.
A crisis of Financing (where existing commitments have already outstripped resources but where considerations of human rights, social demand economic development, and political necessity all point to the need to assume new and ever expanding commitments.
This study will concern itself so much with a crisis of quality and credibility as the two expose the missing link in the provision of this education for all the involvement of the community with its indigenous type of education which particular communities practised long before the imposition of western schooling. This can be shown diagrammatically.
This missing link is clearly stated in the book African Thoughts on Prospects of Education For All that was published as part of the African preparation for a participation in the EFA conference. In this book, the main concerns are preserving African Culture through Education. The concern here is that the type of Education needed should be culture – oriented and incorporate African norms and values, African traditional practices and help shape the historical identity of Africans (Birgit, 2000.9)
The twelve authors of the book claim that making education available to all raises the question. “What education to what classes of the population at what specific periods in their lives by what means and for what purposes. (UNESCO –UNICEF, 1990.6)
These are some of the questions, Zambia like many Sub Saharan African nations needed to have addressed in order to implement the EFA goals meaningfully to their nations. Failure to do so meant that much of what has been recorded as successes in the implementation of these EFA goals is an emphasis placed on quantitative goals such as increasing the number of pupils enrolled in schools. Kelly (1999) holds that the focus of Education for All is not on the numbers enrolled in schools or participating in established programmes. Rather it is on measurable learning achievements and outcomes.
(Foot note measurable learning achievements in practice looks at the development of communication skills; the fostering of knowledge and skills that enhance the quality of life and the development of skills that can contribute to economic production in ones given community or society.) (UNESCO – UNICEF 1990) So quality in this case means relevance to local needs and adaptability to local cultural and economic conditions.)
Catherine Odora Hoppers, who has followed the implementation of EFA strategies rather closely, finds that the Jomtien Conference represented a missed opportunity to reclaim on education for Freedom and self-reliance. She finds that the Education for All Conference gave disproportionate focus on Formal Primary Schooling.
“It was School Education for all just being labelled “Education for All.” (Odora Hoppers, 1998 – 177)
So failure by Zambia, like many African Nations to achieve EFA goals is largely due to shortcomings of this Education for All Programme, which in reality has turned out to be “Western Schooling for All.”
The following are some of the shortcomings of this Western Schooling wearing the jacket of Education for All.
(To serve a relatively small and homogeneous group of elite pupils.
(Follows a curriculum irrelevant to the real life situation of the pupils and the
Communities they intend to serve. The community is divorced from the system.
(100 Academic/bookish curriculum.
(Almost no community involvement as indigenous forms of education is completely
rejected on the bases of their shortcomings.
(Responds to reward system of society and thereby encouraging individualism and
social stratification.
(Dominated by examination and not enough life long knowledge is achieved by
pupils.
(Too much reliance on Foreign Cultural influences and has deprived itself of Zambian Cultural Forms. Being largely imitative, the education system diminishes Zambian culture and has little sense of direction in trying to discover Zambian values. Indigenous education is never considered as a foundation on which the Western schooling can be built.
(It tends to alienate children from their own environment and community. Among rural communities, this tendency encourages the influx into urban areas.
(The pyramidal structure of system (see table 3) results in large numbers of children being ejected from the system as “drop outs” and “push outs” at Grade 4, Grade 7, Grade 9 and Grade 12.
(School is always separate; it is not part of society (it divorces its participants from the society it is to serve.) it is a place children go to and which they and their parents hope will make it unnecessary for them to become farmers and continue living in villages.
(It gives an impression that knowledge, which is worthwhile, comes from books or from “educated people” (educated to mean those who have gone through school). The knowledge and wisdom of other older people is despised, and they themselves are regarded as being ignorant and of no account. Stress is on book learning and places no value to our society of traditional knowledge and the wisdom, which is often acquired by intelligent men and women as they experience life. (Indigenous education) even without their being able to read at all.
(Designed to serve a relatively small and homogenous group of elite pupils. In other words, the education provided by the Western School may never be a vehicle for the provision of education for all as it is designed for the few who are intellectually stronger than their fellows. It induces among those who succeed a feeling of superiority, and leaves the majority of the others hankering after something they will never obtain, thereby inducing the growth of a class structure in society.
(Nyerere 1967; Ngulube 1989 Kelly 1999)
The shortcomings of the Western Schooling in the provision of Education for All have helped in establishing the missing link – the consideration of the indigenous education in the implementation of the EFA goals. This would complete the list of stakeholders of this Education for All Programmes complete.
5. INDIGENOUS EDUCATION.
Before the coming of Europeans, there was an indigenous education system in Africa. The content of indigenous education programmes differed from society to society. However it is important to note that despite these variations, these indigenous types of education did not differ so much. (Bray and Clarke) hold that although indigenous education systems can vary from one society to another, the goals of these systems are often strikingly similar.
(Bray et al 1986) I will limit myself to focus on the indigenous education as practised by the Chewa people of the Eastern part of Zambia in the subsequent discussion.
Many writers (Kelly 1996, Bray et al 1986, Ngulube, 1989, Bogonko 1992) shown that the education acquired through these systems was moral progressive, gradual and very practical. Education covered actual life and the intricacies of day to day life in the society where the student lived. Bogonko (1992.6) writes.
“The values, knowledge, and skills of society were transmitted by work and trained by example. The education was characterised by its collective and social nature because every member was learning and teaching all the time”.
Edwin Smith (1934: 319) defines indigenous education as a system of knowledge comprising realities and survival skills of a given people in relation of their day to day life.
Many authors describe indigenous education as an element of social reproduction and renewal essential for the progress of any country. (K1 – Zerbo 1990). It is the socialisation process, the learning by doing and apprenticeship the learning through oral literature and rites (Odora C. 1994). Its being ignored in the western schooling may explain the missing link in the battle to achieve education for all.
Ajayi et al (1996:4) shows that there were levels in the education offered. They distinguish three levels but agree that indigenous education involved far more than an inward looking of socialisation. They assert.
“There were no clear cut gradations, but it is possible to speak of an elementary level where, besides basic moral education and socialisation into the kinship group and larger community, the child learnt from the mother and other adults within the house hold to talk, to count and appreciate the subtleties of the language.”
According to George Makore (2001) this elementary level was largely individualised between mother and child but also communal for children of the same age within the household. It worked well as they discussed through riddles and conundrums, games, fables and story telling.
The second level, in their understanding, occurred when the child was educated partly through an informal system of apprenticeship to one or more adults to acquire skills in an occupation and the knowledge relevant for the pursuit of that occupation. Higher Education in the African context was responsible for the production and transmission of new knowledge necessary for the understanding of the world, the nature of man, society, God and various divinities, the promotion of Agriculture and Health, Veterinary medicine, Literature and Philosophy. The Principal objectives of indigenous education were to:
-Transmit and conserve the accumulated wisdom of the family, the clan and the ethnic group. This way, children considered as new members of the society, were helped to adapt meaningfully to their physical environment so crucial for survival.
-Mould character and moral qualities developed physical aptitudes and combine manual activities with intellectual exercises.
-Produce a fully socialised person, emotionally fit for all the challenges of life. After all this was perceived as lifelong education.
-Encourage the perpetuation of ethnic institutions like marriage, laws about different issues well expressed in Proverbs, saying of the wise, riddles and stories, language use and societal values which were to be handed down the years from preceding generations.
-Bray et a; (19817) summarise the principal objectives of indigenous education stated above into what they call three goals of indigenous education namely;
-Normative goals (concerned wit instilling the accepted standards and beliefs governing correct behaviour.
-Expressive goals (concerned with the creation of unity and consensus)
-Instrumental goals (refers to competitive element within the system in intellectual and practical matters bat this competitiveness is controlled and subordinated to normative and expressive aims.
1. THE INDIGENOUS EDUCATION OF THE CHEWA PEOPLE IN ZAMBIA.
The Chewa/Nyanja groups of people speak Chichewa/Chinyanja languages. They are found in the Eastern region of Zambia (See map) it is important to note that these Chewa/Nyanja speaking tribes are also found in Mozambique and Malawi. They all belong to one large Kingdom the Undi Kingdom (Mwale 1973) .
Currently all the Chewa in these three countries, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi observe one cultural traditional ceremony known as “Kulamba” which takes place in Zambia at a place known as ‘Mkaika” in the district of Katete – Eastern Province. All the Chewa Chiefs assemble at this place for their ceremony.
Like many African tribes, the Chewa people had their own indigenous education system before the imposition of missionary education. The Zambian 73 tribes can be divided in to two groups i.e. Matrilineal and Patrineal societies. One significant difference between the two groups is centred on ownership of children in a family. Among the matrilineal societies, children belong to the mother and the uncle (brother to the mother of the children) exercises authority over the children of his sisters as his own children have their own uncles. This uncle ship responsibility includes the power to send or not send his sister’s children to school.
Among the patrieneal societies, children belong to the father who exercises all the authority over his sisters’ children. Many Zambian tribes are matrilineal and the Chewa People are one of the biggest matrilineal groups in Zambia.
Long before the introduction of Western schooling by the missionaries, the Chewa people had a well-established form of indigenous education, which to a larger extent was entrenched in their traditional dance, which had a structure life that of a school. Just like the school establishment has a head, Deputy, Senior Teachers, Teachers, Prefects and pupils, the Nyau traditional dance of the Chewa has a similar structure. It has the head of a group of people drawn from a number of villages; it also enjoys the presence of the Deputy, Senior Instructors, trainees and recruits. In the Nyau dance arrangement, there also exist a graduation ceremony and a number of open day like scenarios when their Nyau performers show or give a display of their Nyau dancers.
As a way of resisting the imposition of the missionary education, the Chewa Nyau dancers found a subtle way of ridiculing and challenging the missionary education by naming some of their dancers after some prominent figures or names found in the missionary run schools. Realizing that names like Joseph and Mary (Jesus’ parents) Simon (so many Catholic fathers were known by that name) were very prominent in this type of education, the Chewa people gave names of such prominent figures to some of their Nyau dancers. To date, the Chewa people have Nyau dancers known as Yosefe (Joseph), Maliya (Mary), Simoni (after Numerous Catholic fathers and brothers known by that name – Simon).
Although no known research has been conducted, it is common knowledge that many of those who went through the traditional Nyau ‘ school’ so to say, have not gone through the Western schooling and Vice versa. Such knowledge is vital if we are to talk about providing education for all. Like the Chewa people, the same is true with other language groups in Zambia (Mwale 1973). The following are the similarities between the Chewa tradition Nyau ‘schools’ and the Western schools.
|CHEWA NYAU ‘SCHOOLS’ |MISSIONARY/WESTERN SCHOOLS |
|anisation structure (Head, Deputy, Trainers, |1. Organisation structure beginning with the head to |
|Trainees, Recruits) |the pupil. |
|2. Code of conduct |2. School rules |
|3. Punishment for failure to following the code of |3. Punishment for rule breakers. |
|conduct | |
|4. Specialisation in some dances that require some |4. Specialisation in some skills. |
|skills | |
|5. Some Nyau dances named after Joseph, Maria Simon |5. Joseph, Mary and Simon were prominent names in the|
| |mission. |
|6. Graduation ceremony for recruits locally known as |6. Have open days and graduation ceremonies. |
|‘gwere –gwere | |
|7 Very rigid curriculum centred on societal needs |7. Very rigid curriculum imported from Western |
| |countries. |
|8 had both summative and formative with more emphasis |Had both summative and formative assessment with more|
|on the latter assessment. |emphasis on the former. |
The indigenous education of the Chewa people had a well-set organisation structure, which had a family as its starting point and then society. It had its socialisation agents like ceremonies, dances, special gathering places service as ‘ village Parliaments’ (Kumtondo) for the female, family, peer groups, environment, cattle rearing places, Gowero (boys and girls dormitories) water drawing places, Funeral gatherings or places and around the fire etc
GROWING UP IN ZAMBIA. A HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORALLY PERSPECTIVE OF INDIGENOUS EDUCATION AMONG THE CHEWA PEOPLE.
ORGANIZATION CHART.
Source – Adapted from (Ngulube 1989)
Its methodologies included songs, folktales, imitation, work, play, oral literature, practical although actual participation in adult activities (fishing, hunting, agriculture, house – keeping); Proverbs, riddles, figures of speech, etc. The methodologies closely followed the curriculum, which was basically, a sum total of experiences of family, tribe or group. This curriculum stressed
i) detailed knowledge of physical environment and skills for exploiting it.
ii) How to live and work with others,
iii) roles in networks of kinship’s and relationships and understanding of rights and obligations.
iv) Laws, customs, moral principles, obligation to the Chewa people’s ancestral spirits, to relatives and to others in the group or tribe. Taboos, beliefs and superstition reinforced these. One would say punishment and fear were widely used as motivators for learning and behaviour. (Ngulube. 1989, Kelly. 1999)
Cont…ed
TABOOS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES.
|1 |Infidelity by husband when the wife is |1 |Wife will have prolonged labour/baby will be ‘cut’\ (Mdulo) i.e. |
| |pregnant or baby is still too young. | |die of cough. |
|2 |Infidelity by wife during pregnance |2 |Bridged pregnancy/turning yellow when sees baby |
|3 |Boys not to have sex with elderly girls or |3 |Their genitals will shrink, broken or bitten |
| |old women | | |
|4 |Boys not to touch pots or doing house chores |4 |Fingers will pill off and be lazy ones. |
| |in the kitchen | | |
|5 |No eating of eggs/fatty mice/gizzards (boys, |5 |Impotence for boys/ labour pains for women and burrenness for |
| |girls, women) | |girls. |
|6 |No putting of salt to food when menstruation |6 |“Cut” the people eating the food |
|7 |No eating of barbell fish or tortoise |7 |Men will either slip or withdraw from them |
| |(females) | | |
|8 |Boys/Girls not to stand when talking to |8 |Legs will sink |
| |elders or in their presence | | |
|9 |No eating while standing or moving |9 |The food will go in the legs instead |
|10 |Boys/Girls not to enter their parents |10 |Blindness will strike them. |
| |bedrooms | | |
|11 |Girls to look down when talking to men |11 |They will be thought to be immoral |
|12 |Children to look away when elders sit |12 |They will either be blind or have a swollen eyelid. |
| |carelessly | | |
|13 |Say no to marriage advances until several |13 |A ‘Yes” at first attempt would mean you were loose or stranded |
| |attempts are made | | |
|14 |Still born to be buried by women only and in|14 |Deeper grave meant deepening the berry, thus prolonging the |
| |shallow graves | |arrival of another baby. |
SUPERSTITIONS AND BELIEFS.
|1 |Movement of upper lip/lower eye lid |1. |Good/bad news respectively |
|2 |Finding snakes mating/multi coloured snakes |2 |Will be a funeral soon or already there at home |
|3 |Owls hooting/whistling bird sing past the village |3 |Announcing death |
|4 |Finding a chameleon digging a hole in the middle of the |4 |Trouble at home |
| |road | | |
|5 |Meeting black ants not carrying food in their mouths |5 |No food at home |
|6 |Mango plant flowering extensively |6 |Sign of hunger the coming year |
|7 |An open spiders nest on the ground/a lot of dew |7 |No rains that day |
|8 |Position of the moon when it first appears |8 |Indicating amount of rains or the ushering of diseases |
| | | |that mouth |
|9 |A continuous sound in the ear not audible to others |9 |People far away are talking about you and mention names of|
| | | |the known |
|10 |Palpitation of heart suddenly/a stand of hair at one end |10 |You will hear bad news/danger near by |
|11 |A feeling of laziness |11 |Arrival of visitors |
|12 |The dead to have heads facing the west |12 |The living never to sleep with their heads pointing to the|
| | | |West-bad dreams will follow |
|13 |Giving birth to girls only |13 |Wife stronger than the husband and vice versa |
|14 |Casual sex (just once) |14 |No pregnancy. |
Looking at its taboos and belief, superstitions in tables 5, 6, above, one would say the Chewa indigenous education covered a large spectrum of the Western schooling subjects like those listed down in Table 7.
SUBJECT COMPOSITION OF THE INDIGENOUS EDUCATION AMONG THE CHEWA.
|1 |Practical skills |
|2 |Survival skills, |
|3 |Character formation (patience, honest, obedience, endurance, respect) |
|4 |LAW (How to settle disputes) |
|5 |Veterinary Sciences |
|6 |Social Psychology (Greetings, Questioning techniques) |
|7 |Meteorology |
|8 |Ecology and Zoology |
|9 |Geography and History |
|10 |Herbal Medicine/Health enhancement therapies |
|11 |Mathematics, |
|12 |Biology |
|13 |Chemistry |
|14 |Theology |
|15 |Linguistics |
|16 |Botany. |
Using the Chewa indigenous education system as a yardstick measure in the provision of education for all, we can now look at the main characteristics of the African indigenous education which seem to act as ingredients to the achievement of the EFA goals:
It had the ability to integrate all in to social realities or social construction of people realities (Odora 1994)
It gave rise to societies of a higher level other than dismantling them
(Ki – Zerb 1990 Ngulube (1989)
Other than delaying the provision of education to 7 years, indigenous education emphasised infancy and early childhood education a recipient to a meaningful and effective way of providing universal education.
It was meaningful, unifying, holistic, effective, practical and relevant as there was no separation between education and the world of work. It reached out to and education the whole person. It involved the entire community. It developed strong human bonds and strongly personal centred (Ocitti J 1973)
It does not exist in a vacuum as it belongs to the community and access to this knowledge is gained through contact with that community.
It has transformative power as it offers knowledge, which can be used to foster empowerment and justice in a variety of cultural contexts. It has a tendency to focus on relationships of human beings to both one another and to their ecosystem.
It can be used as the basis to local problem solving strategies. This is so in that indigenous education is not normally generated by planned procedures and rules, like the Western schooling. Instead, it is generated as lay people seek to find solutions to problems in their day to day lives by drawing on existing social wisdom and other local resources that may be available (George J. 1986)
Its understudying principle was to transmit and conserve the accumulated wisdom of the family, the clan and the ethnic group.
It moulded character and more qualities, developed physical aptitudes and combined manual activities with intellectual exercises.
It had unique curricula and diverse teaching methods closely tied to the particular socio cultural context.
Fafunwa (1982:12) sums seven educational objectives of indigenous African education: To
1. develop the child’s latent physical skills
2. develop character,
3. inculcate respect for elders and those in position of authority
4. develop intellectual skills,
5. acquire specific vocational training and to develop a healthy attitude towards honest labour
6. develop a sense of belonging and to encourage active participation in family and community affairs.
7. Understand, appreciate and promote cultural heritage of the community at large.
This paper is not in anyway, suggesting the replacement of western schooling with the African indigenous education with a hope of achieving the EFA goals. Rather, the paper offers a chance to see and to try to identify some aspects of African indigenous education on which the western schooling could have borrowed from other than uprooting it completely as barbaric, old fashioned and primitive just on the bases of its shortcomings. Its value was completely ignored. Kelly (1999) has described this throwing away of African indigenous education into a limbo of forgotten things done by the colonialists as throwing the baby with the tab water.
The paper is trying to suggest the mainstreaming of African indigenous knowledge into the western schooling. This may make the pyramidal structures of the current western schooling change and also remove the current stigma on this type of education which seem to favour the few gifted ones who will continue to climb the path to reach success and the rest end up either as ‘ drop outs’ or ‘push outs’. Ngulube (1989: 161) states that:
‘ Western schooling has completely succeeded in dividing people into have and have not, school, as a balloon lifted some Zambian educated to a point of cross roads of culture and after exploding, as a sieve, it has given and taken; facilitated joy and agony prosperity and poverty.’
Above all it is the relevance other than mere access which would make the provision of education for all meaningful and a desired goal for many. Largely, the irrelevant curriculum divorced from realities in people’s daily lives and their environment has been the main reason why many have lost faith in the current education system. The mainstreaming of aspects of African indigenous education into the curriculum of the western schooling will make it possible to consider indigenous knowledge as a component of school curriculum.
(Mauriel P 58. )
8. INDIGENOUS EDUCATION AND RESEARCHERS IN THE EFA FIELD.
These is need for researchers to explore the indigenous world. The following are some of the steps that may be taken by researchers in an effort to indigenous the Western Curriculum
in an effort to make that drive for education for all meaningful and relevant to the communities targeted for it.
.
LESSONS TO FUTURE RESEARCHERS.
1. Do not magnify the limitations of the indigenous education and ignore all its value.
2. Work a double shift to reconcile the indigenous education and the formal one by understanding the principle underlying this system and its method (Methods).
3. Influence the change in the definition of education in terms of school or something that can only be given through school.
4. Revisit the idea of the family being the critical starting point of any meaningful education.
5. The utilisation of the central role of a “Mother” in the family to tackle the gender imbalances (wives but only one mother).
6. Fit the tradition division of labour in to the modern economy and utilise the honesty, respect for humanity and obedience to maximise productivity in the modern economy.
7. The use of mother tongues to achieve initial literacy.
8. Ways of identfying a Lingua-Fraca of Africa.
9. The herbal medicine world of the indigenous education needs further findings.
10. Identify information the Donor Nations need to have about a particular croup of people before certain programmes they support Commerce.
11 More research is required in an effort to deconstruct the word ‘ indigenous’ and find out why it is loaded with ideological connotation where anything referred to as indigenous is considered ‘primitive’, inferior, (Maurial: 1995) .
12. hierarchized as inferior from Western knowledge in the western world and its
institutions of power (state, Academy, Market) and find out how African indigenous education like that of the Chewa people can regenerate in spite of its subjugated condition.
13 Investigate ways in which African indigenous educators can dialogue with western educators in an effort to balance the contents of the curriculum offered in the provision of education for all. (Birait P 98), (Semali P 118).
14. Indigenous education can act as a tool for promoting learning e. g. how incorporating
15. children’s real life experiences into school work can serve to motivate pupils.
Investigate how African indigenous knowledge may be used to teach language, to explore values, to recount history, to analyse changes in attitudes over time and to teach school science. (For example, many communities, like the Chewa, have practices and beliefs that pertain to child bearing, menstruation, pregnancy plant growth etc (see tables 5, 6, 7)
16. Investigate how aid from donor countries and a bilateral agency to African education often involves the imposition of conditions that create dependency and undermine indigenous education patterns. (Birgit : 1993).
17. ore research is needed in cross – cultural research to look to critical ethnographic methods to examine the culture of school as well as the culture of the community within which the pupils learning is situated in order to broaden the understanding of how ‘ school’ knowledge intersects with ‘ indigenous’ knowledge and establish their relationship. E. g. how do local ways of knowing soil types, trees, crops, ecological changes, traditional healing, and tenure are important in sustaining local communities, proving that it is not true that African indigenous education or knowledge systems are ‘ primitive’ and ‘ unscientific’
(Semali: 1994).
LESSONS TO DONOR NATIONS.
1. Learn something about the indigenous education the people you want to deal with went through.
2. Aim at bottom – up projects that will involve grassroot people and learn how the indigenous education the people went through has an effect on that project.
3. Include the custodians of traditional virtues in your programmes of sensitisation nature .e g. Family Planning, Girls Education, Water and Sanitation, Street Kids, HIV/AIDS Etc.
4. Lean to understand the social structures that have survived modernity and adjust your approach accordingly.
5. Support organisations that are addressing root causes other than effects and indigenous education may provide a clue (HIV AIDS, street kids, dry sex which is favoured traditionally yet it facilitates the spreading of AIDS/HIV, Gender issues).
6. Teach people through Drama, Songs, Stories and plays in their own languages as the case was in the indigenous education other than holding expensive seminars in Five Star Hotels and discuss problems involving a rural woman who is not even aware of it.
Cont…ed
We have looked at the merits of indigenous education and how integrating it with the Western Schooling would help in the drive for Education for All (EFA). However, this paper has not suggested going back to indigenous education as some schools seem to suggest (Odora, 1994), K1-Zerbo 1998; Ngulube 1989). I feel this would be like “Closing the door when the horse has bolted out”. This is so because not everything about African indigenous education is rose. The fact that there is no one signal indigenous form of education is in itself a disadvantage of this education system. Some aspects within various indigenous education system are against the vary idea of Education For All.
Among the Chewa people, for example, much emphasis is in the initiation ceremonies is centred on how a woman should look after her husband and sexual intercourse drills form a larger part of the drills inculcated in the minds of the young girls currently at school. This aspect of this indigenous education is against education for girls, a very important aspect in the light for education for all.
Some disadvantages of African indigenous education which have been identified are that it is rigid and static as the western education; conservative and not open to change or innovation as its world view was restricted; it was orally based, without written records; it has limited scientific understanding and that it promoted conformity and adherence to past traditions, rather than a spirit of inquiry, innovativeness or change (Ocitti J.P. 1973, Nelson P 1974)
7. CONCLUSION.
In conclusion, I would say the need to achieve the Jointien goals on Education For All (EFA) is more important than ever before. What this paper has identified is that African indigenous and Western Forms of education should not be seen as opposite as the two approaches can supplement each other in a number of ways.
As we have seen, indigenous forms of education, like that for the Chewa people, tend to reflect the values, wisdom and expectations of the community or wider society as a whole. Western Forms of education, on the other hand, tend to stress the ‘intellectual’ development of the individual while paying less attention to the needs, goals and expectations of the wider society.
The solution does not lie in abandoning one form of education for the other, particularly if we are to achieve the Education For All goals. A formal education system can play an important role in Africa, but such a system, if it is to meet the cultural, social, moral and intellectual, as well as the political and economic needs of African needs has to be domesticated and indigenized, and it is here that the study of indigenous forms of education becomes crucially important.
The philosophy, methodology and content of schooling in African need to be shaped and moulded, not exclusively, but to a far greater extent, by indigenous perspectives.The paper has made an attempt to show that no serious educational planning. Like the Education For All (EFA) can be undertaken without identification of the specific needs and goals of particular African societies.
We have seen that while indigenous forms of education tend, more, than the western form, to serve the needs and aspirations of the community as a whole, western education, by comparison, tend to be “bookish” and somewhat divorced from the life and culture of the wider community. Furthermore, it tends to encourage competition at the expense of co-operation. On the other hand, it positively seeks to promote originality of thought and outlook, which can be valuable assets in any society.
Finally I would say there is need to harmonise and integrate the best elements of both indigenous and western forms of education to create a more viable system of Education in Africa if the jointien Education For All goals are to be achieved meaningfully.
Cont…ed
8. REFERENCES.
Ajayi, J.F. A. Etal (1996) The African Express with higher Education-London:
James Currey.
Bogonko (1992) Reflections on Education in East Africa. Nairobi;
Oxford University Press.
Bray M, Clarke,P.B. & Stephen D. (1986) Education and Society in Africa. London.
Edward Arnold.
Brock – Utne, Birgit (1995) Cultural Conditionally and Aid to Education in
East Africa. International Review of Education.
Brock – Utne Birgit (2000) Whose Education For All? The Recolonization of the African Mind. London Falmer Press.
Fafunwa, A. B. African Education in perspective In Dafunwa. A.B. and Aisiku, J. U. (eds) (1982) Education In Africa. A comparative Survey George Allen: Boston.
Freive, Paulo (1922) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
George J. (1986) “ Street Science” – An analysis of Science – related social beliefs of secondary school students in Trinidad and Tobago. Unpublished maters thesis, Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario.
Kelly, J. M. (1999) The origin and Development of Education in Zambia from Pre-Colonial Times to 1996. Lusaka: image publishers limited.
Kincheloe J. (1991) Teachers as Researchers Qualitative path to empowerment.
New York: Falmer Ki – Zerbo, J. (1990) Educate or perish – African impass and prospects. Dakar: BREDA with WCARO.
Maurial, M. (1995) Indigenous knowledge and Schooling: A continuum Between conflict and Dialogue. Vilcanot. Cusco.
Markori, G. (2001) The use of English as a medium of instruction in Kenyan Secondary Schools. : Thesis for the master of Philosophy in International and comparative Education. OSLO University of OSLO.
Ministry of Education (1989) Educating Our Future. National Policy on Education –Lusaka: Government Printers.
Ngulube N. (1989) Some Aspects of Growing up in Zambia. Lusaka: NSC.
Nyerere, J. (1967) Education for Self – Reliance.- Dar -es Salaam:
Government Printers.
National Task Force on Education For All (1991) National Conference on Education for All Volume 1. Conference Report, Lusaka: National Education For All Task Force.
Ocitti, J. P. (1973) African Indigenous Education Nairobi. East African Literature Bureau.
Odora, C. (1994) Indigenous Forms of Learning in Africa with special reference to the Acholi of Uganda. In Brock – Utne, Birgit (eds): Indigenous Forms of Learning in African. Rapport. OSLO Institute of Education Research.
Otionde, J.E. Et al (1992) Education and Development in Kenya A historical perspective. Nairobi Oxford University Press.
Smith, Edwin, (eds) (1943) indigenous Education in Africa. London: Kegan and Co. Limited. EC4.
Snelson, P. D. (1974) Educational Development in Northern Rhodesia, 1883-1945 Lusaka NECZAM.
UNESCO – UNICEF (1990) African Thoughts on the prospects of Education For All. Selections from papers commissioned for the Regional Consultation on Education For All.
ELECTRONIC REFERENCE.
The EFA 2000 Assessment Country Report Zambia (http //2 UNESCO. Orglwet/country reports/ Zambia/ rapport – l. html.
Educating Younger Children. A broaden Vision (http:// Ecdgroup. Com/cn/cn 14 john. html
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GOVERNMENT
NON GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANISATIONS (NGOS)
EFA
DONORS
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GOVERNMENT
NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION (NGOS)
EFA
DONORS
COMMUNITY’S FORMS OF INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
MATRILINEAL
PARTRILINEAL
FAMILY
(ASSESSMENT (DAILY (DAY OF MARRIAGE IN MARRIAGE LIFE
(REINFORCEMENT (TABOOS (SUPERSTITIONS (BELIEFS (CURSE
METHODOLOGIES
(DANCES (FIGURES OF SPEECH (EXCULSIONS
(SONGS (RIDDLES (INSTRUCTIONS
(FOLKTALES (QUESTIONS (IMMITATIONS
(PROBERBS (REPETETIONS (PROJECTS
(RESEARCH (GAMES (ADAPTATION
(NSAKA (Mens gatherings) (CATTLE REARING PLACES
(DANCES (Nyau) (SOWERO (Girls/Boys doms)
(CEREMONIES (Initiation) (PAMTONDO (Pounding place)
(FAMILY (AROUND THE FIRE
(SOCIETY (WATER DROWING PLACES
(PEER GROUPS (FUNERAL PLACES
(ENVIRONMENT
SOCIALIZATION INSTITUTIONS
SOCIETY
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