ABSTRACT
This chapter comes at a critical moment in Africa’s development, a time when some critics are debating the role of learning in the development of Africa. It is a time when Africans desire to know better what in current learning systems works and what does not work for them. Among the many criticisms of the current educational and learning systems in Africa is the one-dimensional approach to learning proposed by some proponents and supporters of modernization of education in Africa. They understand learning as preparation for formal employment. Little attention goes to understanding learning as a lifestyle and preparation for civic responsibility. Learning would be dangerous if understood only in relation to tokenism or elitism needed for formal employment. As Searle (1981) observed, in situations where learning is viewed in “ … tokenistic manner; as fringed activities divorced from daily or community life, such learning would last only for as long as school lasts” (p. 3). Learning that truly fits the African lifestyle is that which is lifelong and culturally sensitive. This chapter thus presents a model for developing culturally sensitive learning activities by drawing principles from the African cultural heritage of Ubuntu strengthened by the principles of Botho. Currently, there is a cry for community-responsive learning. Lessons that are imprinted by some learning
experiences are alien and of no use in African learners’ local environments (Chambers, 2003). Some formally educated people are misfits, as they cannot find formal employment and are unprepared to suit communities’ ways of living, like in agriculture. In Botswana, the exodus from rural to urban centers increases with each person’s desperation to find formal employment and live a better life (Lekoko and Modise, 2011). Schools have not helped them to be productive in their own local communities. Thus, the question of relevance arises here, as formal schooling does not fully prepare learners to understand their community’s way of life and to make the best use of their local environment. A different approach is thus desirable, especially in relation to what Africa needs to develop. To this end, learning needed by Africans is that which suits their cultural heritage of communalism, group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, and survival skills like learning oral traditions, weaving, pottery, fishing, mining, forestry, and agriculture, just to mention a few. Useful learning for them is that which brings back values of relevance and functionalism, which are said to have been eroded by foreign learning systems (Teffo, 2000; Preece, 2009). As Wittgenstein (1980) observed, people’s ways of thinking or learning are rooted in their ways of life; therefore, Africans’ ways of life should become a framework for their learning. To this end, the philosophy of Ubuntu, supported by Botho, can assist Africans to develop learning systems that draw from their culture.
