4 1.4 THE GENERAL PURPOSE OF EDUCATION

According to Adeyinka (1993), the purpose of education is to enable an individual to:
1. position himself /herself in the society into which s/he has been born to live;
2. explore the world and find his/her own place in it;
3. cultivate good habits and develop the right attitude to life and work;
4. develop as a good citizen;
5. develop his/her potentialities to the full so that s/he could acquire knowledge and training in a profession and so earn a good living.

Education and society should play complementary roles in education. The school offers only the literary and academic component of education. Initiation into the culture of the society and the development of good character and socially acceptable behaviour are more than the school alone can give. The aims and objectives, goals and means of reaching them are usually stated in the school’s curriculum or subject syllabuses, but the aims and intentions of community-wide education are implicit in the societal expectations of individual members. That is why the wider community has to complement the efforts of the school.

This concept of purposeful living is embedded in the following cardinal goals of African traditional education identified by Fafunwa (1974, p. 20):

1. To develop the child’s latent physical skills;
2. To develop character;
3. To inculcate respect for elders and those in position of authority;
4. To develop intellectual skills;
5. To acquire specific vocational training and to develop a healthy attitude towards honest labour;
6. To develop a sense of belonging and to participate actively in family and community affairs;
7. To understand, appreciate and promote the cultural heritage of the community at large.

The identified principles listed above have far reaching implications for the formal education of today. Translated into modern curriculum and pedagogical theories and practices, the cardinal principles are largely similar to the goals, contents, methods and evaluation techniques of the modern day institution, although the modus operandi may be different. For instance, the seven traditional objectives can be categorised into the cognitive, psychomotor and the affective domains as found in modern day curricular practice. The first objective relates to the psychomotor development of the child through physical participation such as traditional games.

The second, third, fifth, sixth and seventh traditional goals of education closely relate to the affective domain of modem day education. The fourth goal is directly related to the cognitive domain. When closely studied, some of the goals may fall into two or more of the domains of educational objectives as categorised by Bloom (1968), depending on how one examines them. The traditional education of African children is briefly summed up in the words of Kenyatta (1961) while describing the educational system of the Gikuyu (also spelt Kikuyu) people of Kenya:

…. it will be found that education begins at the time of birth and ends with death. The child has to pass various stages of age-groupings with a system of education defined for every status in life. They aim at instilling into the children what the Gikuyu call “otaari wa mocie” or “kerera kia mocie,” namely, educating the children in the family and clan tradition. Apart from the system of schools which has been introduced by the Europeans, there is no special school building in the Gikuyu sense of the word: the homestead is the school…. This is one of the methods by which the history of the people is passed from generation to generation. (pp. 99-100)

This traditional system of education is similar in other African countries. In Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Malawi, traditional education of youngsters involves intellectual, physical and attitudinal training in order to develop fully into acceptable adults in the society. In addition, different kinds of games, including wrestling and running, training for healthy living, cooking, dressing, hunting, farming, carpentry, training to become a smith, drumming, dancing, marriage counselling and critical thinking form part of the traditional curriculum at different stages of the life of the youth. Even on becoming an adult, and after the usual rights of passage, the average African continues to learn from traditional education through a lifelong process. This process fosters unity and citizenship in the African man’s or woman’s immediate environment.

One fascinating example of unity in the traditional sense is illustrated from the Igbo culture of Nigeria in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) while describing how a man, Okonkwo pleaded for communal unity at a feast hosted by him for his kinsmen:

A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for the kinsmen to do so …. I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. (p. 118)

This picture of the importance of unity in the traditional community, in conjunction with other expected norms of the society in the past such as honesty, loyalty, bravery, mental and physical wellness, proper hygienic behaviour, exemplary leadership, responsibility and accountability, suggest that all these goals had existed before the advent of Western education.

In many countries in Africa, such as Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, etc., institutionalized education seems to aim at promoting national unity and civic pride. Some of the aims in African education also include the removal of economic and social poverty, hunger, disease, squalor, illiteracy, ignorance, electoral malpractice, etc; training for citizenship, health improvement, vocational competence, industrial and commercial development and adult literacy; creating a society with high moral standards; and producing adequate or human resources, for economic development. We may stress the point that from the point of view of African societies today, the greatest problem seems to be that of producing and utilizing high-level human-resources to enable the various countries to meet the challenges of the 21, century, especially in the areas of science and technology, transformation and management of change in education, and so on. Therefore, the future aim of education in every African country is, or should be, the advancement of knowledge and the development and utilization of appropriate skills that would lead to national economic recovery and progress.

In the developed countries, such as those in Western Europe and North America, a central aim of education now seems to be the initiation of youth into a new world of learning, ideas, knowledge, thought and imagination, particularly the acquisition of new knowledge in science and technology. Western countries have passed through the age of discovery and inventions. What education aims to achieve now appears to be the preparation of youth for the utilization and preservation of existing products of science and technology; the understanding, handling and enjoyment of the fruits of the labours of their predecessors. If you want X, press Y (where X could mean a variety of human needs, ranging from information on how to operate a complex photocopying machine or boot the computer, to the use of the vending machine to obtain snacks, tea, coffee or coca-cola; and Y for the specific button to press in each case). This seems to be a major type of orientation that youths are now exposed to in the developed countries. In other words, a primary aim of education in the developed countries is to make young people computer-literate and to relate this knowledge to whatever else they do. However, the situation in many African countries is much more complex, especially the challenge of moving from past to future types of work and expectations.

Philosophical foundations or principles of African traditional education Like any effective system of education, customary education in Africa was based on sound philosophical foundations. These foundations or principles have been rightly identified by Ocitti (1971) as:

•  preparationism,
• functionalism,
• communalism,
• perennialism and
• holisticism.

The principle of preparationism, which underlined both formal and informal educational practices, implied that the role of learning and teaching was to equip boys and girls with the skills appropriate to their gender in preparation for their distinctive roles in the society. Pre-colonial education, even in the most centralized and stratified societies, was gender-based, with boys and girls receiving that kind of education which enabled them to fulfil socially defined masculine and feminine responsibilities respectively. Male education thus produced farmers, warriors, blacksmiths, rulers and other maledominated occupations from which women were excluded. On the other hand, female education was predominantly designed to produce future wives, mothers and home-makers. The principle of preparationism further meant that male and female education prepared its recipients to adjust to the community and to play a useful role in it. Children developed a sense of obligation towards the community and grew to appreciate its history, language, customs and values. This is perhaps one of the greatest attributes of indigenous education as opposed to Western education which tended to alienate young Africans from their cultural heritage (Kelly, 1991).

Related to the principle of preparationism was the principle of functionalism. With few exceptions, if any, traditional educational practices in precolonial African societies were predominantly utilitarian (Ocitti, 1971). It was a participatory kind of education in which people learned through imitation, initiation ceremonies, work, play, and oral literature. In this way, the learner was productive as he/she learned and was smoothly integrated into the community: the gap which today exists between study and the world of work was absent in pre-colonial society. Indeed, there was no unemployment in African traditional societies.

The third principle of African indigenous education was communalism. In African traditional education, all members of the society owned things in common and applied the communal spirit to life and work. Children belonged to the community and every member of the community had a stake in their upbringing. For example, if a child misbehaved while the parents were not present, any other adult member of the community could discipline and correct him/her on the spot. Clearing, planting and harvesting were done in a group, on a shift basis for example; a group could clear Mr. A’s farm on one day and move on to clear Mr. B’s farm on the following day. The process was repeated during planting and harvesting seasons and during the building of huts. There was also in practice the thrift and credit system whereby individual members of the community contributed fixed amounts in cowries4 at regular intervals, to be collected by a member of the group at a time. For example, if Mr. A collected the group’s contribution at the end of one week, it would be Mr. B’s turn to collect it at the end of the following week. This was a form of compulsory saving for all adult members of the community, and the money collected in bulk could be used for a worthwhile venture, such as buying farm products for sale in the local market.

Perennialism constituted the fourth philosophical foundation of indigenous education. Most traditional communities in Africa perceived education as a vehicle for maintaining or preserving the cultural heritage and status quo. This partly explains why traditional teachers discouraged pupils from experimenting with the unknown and imposed heavy sanctions on those who tried to do so. In short, education in indigenous African communities was conservative in nature. Because of this, it had only a little progressive influence in the minds of young people (Snelson, 1974; Ocitti, 1973; Adeyinka and Kalusa, 1996).

The fifth philosophical foundation of customary education was holisticism or multiple learning. It is true that in economically, socially and practically advanced societies like the Zulu, Ashanti and Nupe, there was a high degree of specialisation in learning. However, as earlier noted, few African societies developed to that extent. In the latter societies, education provided little or no room for specialisation, but equipped both boys and girls to undertake a multitude of occupations that required related skills. Among the Acholi of Uganda, for example, a boy who was taught to construct a house was also expected to learn related lessons like the geography of the building site with regard to the source of water, geology and location of neighbouring villages. He was also expected to possess knowledge of the right types of trees and grass for construction of walls and for thatching (Ocitti, 1971). Similarly, a child destined to become a fisherman, as already noted, learned not only to catch fish but also to preserve and market it; to make and mend nets; to manufacture canoes and to erect temporary fishing huts. The holistic nature of customary education enabled young people to acquire a variety of skills that made them productive in many ways. A male individual in most non-literate communities could, therefore, embark on a variety of occupations without difficulty. He could work as a builder, farmer or fisherman. A woman worked as a gardener, housewife and cook, besides being a caretaker and nurse to her children.