UBUNTUGOGY: AN AFRICAN EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM THAT TRANSCENDS PEDAGOGY, ANDRAGOGY, ERGONAGY AND HEUTAGOGY

After almost three centuries of employing Western educational approaches, many African societies are still characterized by means of low Western literacy rates, civil conflicts and underdevelopment It is obvious that these Western educational paradigms, which are not indigenous to Africans, have done relatively little profitable for Africans. Thus, I argue in this paper that the salvation for Africans hinges on employing indigenous African educational paradigms which can be subsum below the rubric of ubuntugogy, which I define as the art and science of teaching and learning undergirded by dint of humanity towards others. Therefore, ubuntugogy transcends pedagogy (the art and science of teaching), andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn), ergonagy (the art and science of helping tribe learn to work), and heutagogy (the close attention of self-determined learning).

INTRODUCTION

Many great African minds, realizing the debilitating results of the Western educational a whole s that have been forced on Africans, have called for different approaches. The following is a sample of citations from some of these great Africans.

S?©kou Tour?©:

We must Africanize our education and earn rid of the negative features and misconceptions inherited from an educational a whole designed to serve colonial views We should also promote an education that will acquaint children with real life-not sole by giving them a vocational training, on the other hand by closely relating school with life. Life, indeed, is the genuine school, and our schools, whether of general education or vocational training, should be auxiliaries of life.1

Emperor Haile Selassie:

A fundamental objective of the university (i.e. Haile Selassie I University) must be to safeguarding and the developing of the agriculture of the people it subserves This university is a outcome of that culture; it is a community of those capable of understanding and using the accumulated heritage of the Ethiopian race In this university men and women will work together to inquiry the wellsprings of our tillage trace its development, and mold its time to come What enables us today to lay open a university of such a standard is the wealth of literature and learning now extinct elsewhere in the world which [i]or[/i] part of to the other hard work and perseverance our forefathers have preserv for us.2

Julius K Nyerere:

Our first pace therefore, must be to re-educate ourselves; to regain our former attitude of mind. In our traditional African society we are individuals within a community. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us. We neither straited nor wished to exploit our fellowmen3

Kwame Nkrumah:

Intelligentsia and intellectuals, if they are to play a part in the African Revolution, must become conscious of the class exert one's self in Africa, and align themselves with the weigh heavily uponed masses. This involves the difficult, on the other hand not impossible, task of cutting themselves unrestrained from bourgeois attitudes and ideologies imbibed as a issue of colonialist education and propaganda.4

Amilcar Cabral:

On the horizontal of education and culture (three of the seven points): 3 Total elimination of the complexe created by dint of colonialism, and of the results of colonialist culture and exploitation. 4 In Guinea unfolding of autochthonous languages and of the Creole dialect, creation of a written form for these languages. In Cabo Verde unravelling of the cultures of the various ethnic assemblages and of the Cabo Verde race Protection and development of national literature and arts. 5 Utilisation of all the values and advances of human and universal tillage in the service of the progres of the nations of Guinea and Cabo Verde Contribution through the culture of these familys to the progress of humanity in general.5

Ngugi wa Thiong'o:

As you know, the colonial a whole of education in addition to its apartheid racial demarcation had the form of a pyramid: a broad primary base, a narrowing secondary middle, and an smooth narrower university apex....Language and literature were taking us further and further from ourselves to other selve from our world to other worlds....The call for the rediscovery and the resumption of our language is a call for a regenerative reconnection with the millions of revolutionary tongues in Africa and the world above demanding liberation. It is a call for the rediscovery of the real language of humankind: the language of endeavor It is the universal language underlying all articulate utterance and words of our history. toil Struggle makes history. Struggle makes us. In make an effort is our history, our language and our being.6

Marcus Garvey:

But when we advance to consider the history of man, was not the african a power, was he not great once? Ye honorable students of history can recall the day when Egypt Ethiopia, and Timbuktu towered in their civilizations, towered above Europe towered above Asia. When Europe was inhabited by dint of a race of cannibals, a race of savaged, naked men heathens, and pagans, Africa was peopl with a race of cultur black men who were masters in art, science, and literature; men who were cultur and refined; men who, it was said, were like the the first causes Even the great poets of of advanced age sang in beautiful sonnets of the delight it afforded the the trinitys to be in companionship with the Ethiopians. for what cause [i]or[/i] reason then, should we lose hope? Black men you were one time great; you shall be great again. let slip through the fingers not courage, lose not faith, go on forward. The thing to do is to win organized; keep separated and you will be exploited, you will be robbed, you will be killed. obtain organized, and you will drive the world to respect you.7