Exotic Schools Are Programmed To Fail Us At Home And Abroad

By

Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa

faroukomartins@aim.com

 

 

One of the greatest achievements since the days of colonialism is the number of children trained in African schools. While about half of Nigerians do not attend school or are not functionally educated enough in either Eastern or Western education, most survive in their ethnic languages. Professor Babs Fafunwa on many occasions emphasized how beneficial it is to be at least literate in our own language. So this is by no means a new discovery of a very important deficit in our educational system. Nigeria revised our student’s curriculum many times without much success.

 

If at least half of our trainings were in local languages, it would be difficult to miss local diseases common in our communities without foreign names. The expressions in our literature would be as rich as in Faguwa’s Ireke Onibudo or as in Igbo Bible or Hausa Koran. The communications by our people with their community workers would be as smooth as performing in our festivals. Our language barrier between the classes would also be reduced.

 

Those of us who are not expert in education know there is something missing because in spite of the comparatively huge investment we made in education, our institutions have not produced dividends needed to move our local communities in the Continent forward. Simply put our, values are programmed to that of western world and our gratification comes from the recognition and award which these countries deemed proper and acceptable in the “civilized” world. Thereby we neglect our own pressing local needs in pursuit of international glory.

 

I haste to add that I see nothing wrong in world or international recognitions as long as we understand that it has to be in line and in the interest of those who recognize us. But there is more to life than what we have in common worldwide. Our differences can also be sources of joy or celebration or points we can agree to respectfully disagree. The bottom line is we perform in out own interest first, but in the interest of others for our survival, second.

 

If we look at African contribution to world civilization in term of medicine, astronomy and social sciences, it was back in the ancient days when the Greeks and the Romans came to learn African indigenous inventions that became useful to them. Our children are asking for our achievement lately, not in those ancient days. There is a fundamental difference between now and the ancient days. One way to illustrate it is the practice of acupuncture in China. World or western medicine has come to grips with this practice because Chinese doctors are no doctors in China without knowledge of their most ancient practice. We can not say the same about Africa. 

 

Someone actually provoked my thoughts by proclaiming that are foremost brains in literature are the making or their recognition in the western world. They know Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Albert Mvumbi Lutuli but hear very little about Fagunwa and many Igbo, Hausa and Swahili writers who were the heroes of these noble children of Africa. The reason is simply that their audiences are limited so those who can not read their work can not appreciate their ingenuity. Soyinka actually translated some of the work of Faguwa but we all know how difficult it is to translate one language into another. The beauty of Things Fall Apart was the local Igbo culture not glorification of a counterfeit culture.

 

In the days some of us went to school, most of our textbooks were written by foreign experts. All the examples given in those books, as in my physics, had to do with snow which I had never seen before. We knew more about British history than we did about West African history. Fast forward, how much has changed? A great deal but not fast enough to cope with a fast changing world. There is hardly any subject today that an African is not versed in but African textbooks still lag behind those of western world for various reasons. One of which is authentication. If we are learning about western sciences and history, we might as well get it directly from the source.

 

Luckily, our legal system has moved far beyond the colonial days. Though based on British legal system, our case laws are local and foreign case laws may be good only for comparisons, not for persuasion. That is not unexpected if we look at United States laws based on British system. But their case laws are so different from that of the British, any invocation of British law apart from comparison or history raise derision. Indeed, case laws vary from one State to the other and the State Supreme Court may not go along with Federal Courts. For example, Pretext v. Pretext Plus.

 

The consequences of training our professionals in cultures and sciences that may be relevant to some of our problems but not to most of them may be injurious to our mentality. As much as we know the problem, this is still our dilemma in 21st century Africa. Once in a while, we are reminded when a close relative or friend comes down with an ailment none of our institutions can cure, when our social system fails or our political system do not live up to our expectation.

 

A friend came down with a skin infection once called Eta or Ita but the highest institution in the region can not make a diagnosis of what it was. Surprised that he was resigned to his fate, we urged him to try another teaching hospital but he demurred. Yet, ordinary folks knew what it was and which traditional healer can cure it. Wait a minute, we have infections in Nigeria or Africa that can only be diagnosed or cured the traditional way? Of course, yes!

 

Some of us must wonder what they are teaching our children in school if ordinary folks can recognize an infection a medical scientist can not. Please bear with me and use my Acupuncture example. Is there anything it can cure that most Chinese medical scientists are unaware of?

Rather than take advantage of non-monetary policy or the resources that are locally available to us, we spend the little billions we have acquiring western institutions we can not maintain and learn new languages we can not master since the skill we need is in foreign tongues. At the end of the day our sick are flown to places where diagnosis can not be made of their ailment.

 

Again, I have to emphasize that acquiring world knowledge is icing on the cake but the lack of understanding of primary knowledge is sand on which any foreign skill can not stand. Most of our trained and skilled scientists, professors and other talents are grossly under-employed in the western world because they have little regard for those trained in our Continent.  If they can not be adequately utilized at home and are trained in the art and skill of foreign countries for which they are half as good, why waste our meager resources hoping to perfect their strength?

 

Humans are naturally inquisitive and will go anywhere to explore discoveries totally different to theirs. But if what they see is maligned products of theirs, markets are created for them to bring them up to their standard. Just as foreign universities use Africans to teach our languages.