Modernization versus cultural resilience in education in East Africa

Taylor and Francis Ltd CUS_A_130744.sgm 10.1080/00220270500307619 Journal of Curri ulum Studies 0 22-0272 (p i t)/1366-5839 (online) Essay Review 2 05 & Francis 0002 5 WinstonAkala akalajumba@yahoo.com Since the 1960s, when Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda attained independence, scholars and educators have been embroiled in debate about the educational roles of existing ethnic cultures and ‘modern’, western educational values (Sifuna 1992, Sifuna and Otiende 1994). In Kenya, the Ominde Education Commission suggested indigenization of education. In Tanzania, with the 1967 Arusha Declaration, Nyerere (1971)—an agile academic and the founding president of Tanzania—established a technical and vocational education strategy based on African socialism, Ujamaa. In the same period, similar education reform policies swept through other East African countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Somalia (Bogonko 1992). The few studies that have been conducted in East Africa, including the two reviewed here, Swadener et al.’s Does the Village Still Educate the Child? and Stambach’s Lessons from Mount Kilimanjaro, have unveiled interesting relationships between African cultures and western educational values. However, they have only sparingly interrogated the relations between western educational practices and those of indigenous African cultures. As a result, the analyses have largely overlooked the role of present-day African culture in seeking to balance the values and practices of formal education in a way that both avoids the reproduction of western culture in an incompatible context and enhances educational practice within African contexts. I divide this essay review into four parts. First, I explore the idea of cultural resilience. Next I summarize the main issues in Does the Village Still Raise the Child? and Lessons from Kilimanjaro. I then look at these two books