Excerpts from a seminal article by Adbul Karim Bangura. To access the full article, use this link. More African social work literature available here.
Cite as: Bangura, A. K. (2005). ‘Ubuntugogy’: An African educational paradigm that transcends pedagogy, andragogy, ergonagy and heutagogy. 22. 13-53.
Bangura Biography: Born in Sierra Leone in 1953, five PhDs (Politics, Computers, Maths, Linguistics and Development), two masters degrees and speaks over 18 languages. He has published 98 books and over 708 articles. Among others, philosopher and Africanist Cheikh Anta Diop was one major influencer on his work.
BANGURA STARTED BY SAYING
After almost three centuries of employing Western educational approaches, many African societies are still characterized by low Western literacy rates, civil conflicts and underdevelopment. It is obvious that these Western educational paradigms, which are not indigenous to Africans, have done relatively little good for Africans. Thus, I argue in this paper that the salvation for Africans hinges upon employing indigenous African educational paradigms which can be subsumed under the rubric of ubuntugogy, which I define as the art and science of teaching and learning undergirded by humanity towards others. Therefore, ‘ubuntugogy’ transcends pedagogy (the art and science of teaching), andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn), ergonagy (the art and science of helping people learn to work), and heutagogy (the study of self-determined learning) (Bangura, 2005, p. 12).
HE CITED AFRICAN LUMINARIES
Many great African minds, realizing the debilitating effects of the Western educational systems that have been forced upon Africans, have called for different approaches (p. 12)
Sekou Toure: We must Africanize our education and get rid of the negative features and misconceptions inherited from an educational system designed to serve colonial purposes. We should also promote an education that will acquaint children with real life-not only by giving them a vocational training, but by closely relating school with life. Life, indeed, is the true school, and our schools, whether of general education or vocational training, should be auxiliaries of life.’ (p. 13).
Emperor Haile Selassie: A fundamental objective of the university (i.e. Haile Selassie I University) must be to safeguarding and the developing of the culture of the people it serves. This university is a product of that culture; it is a community of those capable of understanding and using the accumulated heritage of the Ethiopian people. In this university men and women will work together to study the wellsprings of our culture, trace its development, and mold its future. What enables us today to open a university of such a standard is the wealth of literature and learning now extinct elsewhere in the world which through hard work and perseverance our forefathers have preserved for us (p. 15).
Julius K. Nyerere: Our first step, therefore, must be to re-educate ourselves; to regain our former attitude of mind. In our traditional African society we are individuals within a community. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us. We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellowmen (p. 15).
Kwame Nkrumah: Intelligentsia and intellectuals, if they are to play a part in the African Revolution, must become conscious of the class struggle in Africa, and align themselves with the oppressed masses. This involves the difficult, but not impossible, task of cutting themselves free from bourgeois attitudes and ideologies imbibed as a result of colonialist education and propaganda (p. 15).
Ngugi wa Thiong’o: As you know, the colonial system of education in addition to its apartheid racial demarcation had the structure of a pyramid: a broad primary base, a narrowing secondary middle, and an even narrower university apex….Language and literature were taking us further and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds….The call for the rediscovery and the resumption of our language is a call for a regenerative re- connection with the millions of revolutionary tongues in Africa and the world over demanding liberation. It is a call for the rediscovery of the real language of human kind: the language of struggle. It is the universal language underlying all speech and words of our history. Struggle. Struggle makes history. Struggle makes us. In struggle is our history, our language and our being (p. 15).
THE DEBILITATING EFFECTS OF WESTERN EDUCATION AND AFRICAN CULTURAL RESILIENCE
Western education has made many Africans selfish. It has transformed their families from extended ones to nuclear ones-i.e. husband, wife and their own children only. Children not born in the nuclear families and members of the extended families are all regarded as outsiders.
In pre-colonial Africa, divisions into cousins, nephews, nieces, half-brothers, half-sisters, uncles and aunts were absent. Uncles and aunts were called fathers and mothers, respectively; cousins were simply called brothers or sisters, as they were all members of one family. In some areas, families went beyond biological relationships.
There were relationships known as blood-brothers or blood-sisters acquired through special traditional ceremonies. These and their own relatives also became members of the extended families. All these and any other beliefs connected with kindness, reliability and respectability were meant to promote goodness and good manners among the people, especially members of the extended family or close family friends.
Western education tended to be discriminatory. Particular attention was given to the education of the children of people of influence. Promising youths were prepared for responsible positions.
When European missionaries arrived in Africa, they converted some Africans, particularly the rulers and other influential people, to their new religion, condemned the medicine men and the herbalists who they often oxymoronically referred to as “witch-doctors,” and sometimes imprisoned them. They regarded the worshiping of traditional gods as primitive and superstitious, and discouraged the wearing of certain ornaments which were believed to be curative. Dancing at wedding ceremonies was regarded as sinful. Local drinks were replaced with imported ones, and the Africans who continued to drink the local brew were labeled drunkards. On the whole, African culture was regarded as having little value.
The traditional teacher was replaced by the new teacher who was either a European missionary himself or an African convert, indoctrinated in the church and made to believe that the indigenous people had to change their ways of life if they were to get to heaven.
However, many traditional customs and beliefs proved resilient. The traditional teacher, the traditional medicine man and the traditional prophet continued to be very active in many parts of Africa. When society became hostile to them upon the advent of Christianity and colonialism, many of them went underground. They practiced their professions at night or in locked rooms because the governments, the Christian church and society were all against them (p. 24-25).
IN CONCLUSION, BANGURA SAID…
The preceding discourse has been edging towards the proposition that in order for Africans to combat low literacy, civil strife and underdevelopment, ubuntugogy would add a distinctly African flavor and momentum to the endeavor. Ubuntugogy is both a given and a task or desideratum for educating Africans. It is undoubtedly part and parcel of the cultural heritage of Africans. However, it clearly needs to be revitalized in the hearts and minds of some Africans.
Although compassion, warmth, understanding, caring, sharing, humanness, etc., are underscored by all the major world orientations, ubuntu serves as a distinctly African rationale for these ways of relating to others. The concept of ubuntu gives a distinctly African meaning to, and a reason or motivation for, a positive attitude towards the other. In light of the calls for an African Renaissance, ubuntugogy urges Africans to be true to their promotion of peaceful relations and conflict resolution, educational and other developmental aspirations.
We ought never to falsify the cultural reality (life, art, literature) which is the goal of the student’s study. Thus, we would have to oppose all sorts of simplified, or supposedly simplified, approaches and stress instead the methods which will achieve the best possible access to real life, language and philosophy.
What are the lessons for social work?
- Bangura’s ideas strongly support the need to decolonize the professions, including social work.
- Ubuntu is central to both decolonisation and indigenisation of social work.
- The need for valuing, recognising and using African philosophy, literature, local ideas and authors. before we look outside Africa, for literature, have we searched and exhausted what we have?
- African education theory is strong and should not be sidelined in favour of western theory and theorists. The same for research.
- The African educator (teacher, lecturer, tutor, librarian, administrator, principal, dean or Chancellor) is an important part of decolonisation, they first have to wean themselves from westernisation before they can decolonise African learners.
Important works carried in seminal works such as those of Bangura should find their way into African classrooms. This can only happen if the lecturer takes literature like this into the syllabus at the same time remove western literature that dominate the African curriculum, including in social work. Initiatives like the ASWNet and the Ubuntu Research Group (URG) play an instrumental role in this process, this role being, aggregating this kind of literature and making it accessible;e to the educators and learners.