How traditional African society education is superior to our educational model today

  

Date Posted: 7/6/2014 2:00:08 PM

Posted By: Wishstar  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 7507

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How Traditional African Society Education is Superior to our Educational Model Today

Though the form of education that existed in the traditional African society has greatly been abandoned in the modern world, its model has a lot that modern and formal education can borrow from.

Traditional African society education was acquired, instilling values, skills, knowledge, societal attitudes and norms by involving the learner wholly in the learning process. Students were united and learnt by doing tasks together in the society with experienced elders. This effort was a deliberate one targeted towards reinforcing and perpetuating solidarity in the society as well as individual accountability. Such important factors are not offered in the model of education that is present in our institutions today.
The education in traditional African societies was fully intended for the development of the character of the child and also the intellectual skills that are intended to foster a positive attitude towards work.

Respect was also given to elders and in general to those in authority and this fostered participation and belonging to the society. As a result, experience was integrated wholesomely to the child. It was greatly functional in molding character that was oriented towards everyday living in the society. This aspect offered in the traditional education system is not given in schools, colleges and universities which consider themselves to be modern and established.

If we revert back to traditional African society system of education, the instructors and students dwelt in the same environment and were grouped based on age and sex. Thereby, mentorship that resulted from such interaction was of the highest order. This question involving mentorship is to be seriously taken as students are to be well prepared to have good leadership qualities to lead our nation in the right direction of economic growth and development.

If we look closely and keenly

at traditional education, in some sense it is superior to formal education as it provided theoretical as well as good practical training for students. Take a look at this example: Learners who were taught to graze cattle were taught the benefits of certain plants on the diet of the animals. They were shown the actual plants and personally took the cattle to graze. Proper direction was given on how to do all of these. Such kind of integration of theoretical and practical learning mostly lacks in the current education system in our universities.

In summary, the characteristics of traditional African system of education that can be included in modern education are:
1. Involvement of the whole community. This developed an individual to benefit the whole society.
2. Acquiring of knowledge with the student being totally and wholly involved.
3. Transmission of relevant knowledge, morals and skills.

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