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The facts as they are:
What I see; is a scheme which has as its objective the improvement in this condition must begin from a careful consideration of the facts – the reality – at a given time. Necessarily, it would involve a consideration of the world-view of the people of a given place, distinctive activities which take place in the place, how these activities fit together, what may be the most important factor which explains the condition and the level of life in a place, communication with communities in the neighbourhood and with the nearest urban centres.
Presently I consider life in a typical country side in the rain forests of southern Cameroon. In the school the pupil learns how to read, write, and be able to count. Out of school he is part of the domestic labour. For subsistence he is a hand in farm work and sometimes in fishing and hunting. For sources of cash, the family may entertain a number of plantations of cash-earning produce like cocoa, and oil palm. Surplus food crops like groundnuts and cassava may also be sold for cash. Income from these sources enable the family to acquire some additional primary needs like fuel for their lamps, soaps with which to wash clothes, sometimes drugs for common illnesses and for some school needs for those who go to school. Let us say, we here have a typical instance of an economy of subsistence – what we would term a condition of hand-to-mouth life.
A casual examination would reveal a basic logic beneath the order of subsistence. Production is essentially for the satisfaction of first needs, namely, food for mouths to be fed, and welfare for a liveable continued subsistence.
The level of production is strictly tied to the seasons. Towards periods of rains, the fields are prepared for cultivation, and during the dry season the previous harvests are consumed. The harvests must be consumed for lack of facilities which would enable preservation and poor communication with urban centres in which they may be sold for cash. In this situation it is impossible to accumulate resources for a spread use. If preservation [and of course accumulation] were possible, this would enable the peasant to engage in wider industry and in more than one domains than the cultivation for subsistence. There would be prospects for expansion in resources, for higher levels of life and perhaps for investments for expanded production even if it would be in the domain of labour in larger-sized plantations.
What I propose:
My interest in what I have called the world-view of a people – which may be referred to as the horizon of the people is that, the common practices in relation to production are usually customary practices which have always been among the people since ancestral times. For their non-exposure to other ways of doing things, in their majority, they are not aware of the existence of other ways. Any action for development should have as an important element in its conception, a thought-out approach to a kind of education which takes into account customary approaches and the pool of wisdom in indigenous systems of knowledge.
The school in its present form needs a re-examination, and a “tuning in,” to relate it to the immediate contexts of our lives – the specific needs for life in a rain forest, according to the resources the people can readily access to in the part of the globe in which they live. This “tuning in” must needs to take into account the world-views of the different peoples of the named places and the resourcefulness of the institutions of the land.
Specific questions which may be addressed are:
Education for what?
Education for whom?
What approach to education?
Education how?
A reasoned policy on education is an urgent need for any society and should be an obsession to its leader if they are thoughtful about a meaningful legacy for posterity.
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Writer Profile
Akwalla Johanness
I am a young development activist who believes that for youths to be successful, we need to come together and share ideas that are beneficial to the whole of humanity.
I strongly believe that for Africa to come out of the political hostage its finds itself, our leaders must stop to consider themselves as traditional rulers. We all know that traditional rulers rule for life, and power is passed on to their descendant. And I think that once our leaders stop to think of themselves as such and concentrate on development by investing into the education and basic health care and social services, then can we say we are on the right path to human development.
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