What is it about?
This article argues that it is almost impossible to fulfil the requirements of the right to education in Africa without acknowledging the harmful effect that colonisation has had on education practices in Africa. Rethinking African realities requires more concrete engagement within education systems with the contributions of African philosophies and African Indigenous knowledges.
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Why is it important?
This is important because if education is hailed as a key means by which human development is achieved, anything that interrupts its fulfillment has to be acknowledged and engaged with seriously.
Perspectives
The article examines Africa’s education narrative and suggests a critical Freirian approach for decolonising education in Africa. In the article, I contend that undecolonised education – as illustrated by the state of education across many African states – results in epistemic violence/injustice and is thus pedagogically and ethically unsound. This violates the right to education. The argument I make therein is contextualised within a postcolonial and anticolonial deconstruction of ‘Africa.’ I think the minute we begin to engage with decolonial thought in creating new African realities and futures, the idea that we can continue to rely on colonial borders, begins to crumble. And when we open the conversation that does away with the borders, then we begin to rethink the right to democracy.
Dr Foluke Ifejola Adebisi
University of Bristol
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Decolonising education in Africa: implementing the right to education by re-appropriating culture and indigeneity, Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, December 2016, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast,
DOI: 10.53386/nilq.v67i4.129.
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