PHILOSOPHY AND PRAXIS

Education is one of the major tools for socio-economic, political and cultural development of the human society. Whether formal or informal, education prepares the individual to live a meaningful life and contribute to the development the society. Consequently, for education to achieve the desired purpose, it must be one that springs from the lived experience of the people. However, Africa’s educational system is hampered by the challenge of a single worldview and this I think is responsible for the slow progress in the development of her society. Much of the indigenous African knowledge systems such as initiation schools, indigenous games, agricultural systems, dance songs, storytelling, proverbs, etcetera that could help us to deal with our peculiar challenges as African remain untapped. The educational system in Africa and Nigeria in particular is too speculative and distant from the developmental challenges that are much desired for development of her society. We live in a fast-globalizing world where we have continuous interaction with different cultures of the world, yet most of our learning does not reflect this global culture but dominated by a single worldview or what I might call Eurocentric mentality. It is therefore imperative that we expand our knowledge and understanding of realities and learn from the diverse histories, cultures, and traditions of the world especially within the African domain. This is the task of intercultural philosophy. Through the method of textual and critical analysis, this study suggests that the integration of African indigenous knowledge system into the African educational system could be a panacea to the educational gap. It argues that the educational curricula should be more expansive to tackle the challenges of the insular and singular nature of the structure of education in Africa.

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