1 1.1 INTRODUCTION

Before the introduction of Western civilization into Africa, education in the continent was purely indigenous. So much has already been written on traditional African education that we only need to summarize existing literature. With the penetration of the Christian missions from the fifteenth century, Western culture – notably British and French – had begun to move into various parts of the continent. The Christian missions brought with them ideas from Western culture that culminated in the introduction of formal education, with its emphasis on literary and purely academic work. African parents readily accepted this new education and they began to send their children to the schools fashioned after the European curriculum to team; they gradually set aside the kind of education, holistic, lifelong, and utilitarian, which they themselves had received. However, the valuable nature of African traditional education has been realized to the extent that today, the call in most African societies is for a return to the indigenous education system, albeit in a modified form. We acknowledge that in the indigenous education of the various communities there were considerable cultural and historical differences. Our concern in the first part of the unit, however, is the presentation of the common core of values in African traditional education. Our argument is that an education that has the input of all members of the community, and prepares each individual for a particular profession or occupational activity, should be the norm in many African societies today.