Can Ubuntu help revitalise African higher education?

African universities have been called upon to rethink how they are preparing the continent for the uptake of technological changes of the Fourth Industrial Revolution by embracing 'Ubuntu' as a philosophical framework for renewal of Africa’s higher education.

Giving a keynote address at the 14th International Conference and Exhibition on ICT for Education, Training and Skills Development, or eLearning Africa 2019, held in Abidjan from 23 to 25 October, N’Dri Therese Assie-Lumumba, a professor of African and diaspora studies at Cornell University, said it was time to re-centre African higher education on Ubuntu values.

Ubuntu, a South African term with equivalents in other languages across the continent, captures the interdependence between human beings. It is a worldview that embraces the oneness of humanity as a collectivity. It is a set of cultural practices and spiritual values that seek respect and dignity for all humanity.

Assie-Lumumba said the challenge for Africa today is to overcome the legacy of a history that is embedded in other people’s philosophical thoughts.

Colonial heritage

Although the concept of education is universal, Assie-Lumumba said its delivery modes are integrated in concrete frames of epistemologies and broad societal values at different historical spaces and moments. “For Africa, the inherited view of education as a means for social control has retained its colonial heritage and that has made it hard to defend African interests, or adopt policies that can advance African societies,” said Assie-Lumumba, who is the current president of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies.

Arguing that African universities since the post-independence era have not developed beyond basic emblems of sovereignty, such as flags and national anthems, Assie-Lumumba said, it is time to re-centre African higher education on Ubuntu values.

Expounding on the conference theme: “Keys to Africa’s Future: Learnability and Employability”, Assie-Lumumba noted that although, Africa has a lot of talent, it is critical for Africans to work together to solve problems and promote social progress, especially at this historical moment of the emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

She argued that, even in circumstances whereby higher education and, in particular, the acquisition of technical skills is deemed neutral of social and cultural influences, any form of training can achieve its objectives only if the social factors and values for its constructive utilisation are integrated in the process of learning such skills.

“A holistic, human-centred and conscious philosophy of life such as Ubuntu can serve the world by promoting global principles for social progress,” said Assie-Lumumba.

A strong advocate of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in Africa’s higher education, Assie-Lumumba called on African governments to think about how to educate the next generation of highly skilled workers.

According to Assie-Lumumba, the future in Africa and other developing countries was not about basic literacy, but about the ability of workers to use ICT digital tools and platforms. She highlighted the importance of reducing the digital divide, not only among countries but within urban and rural areas, as well as between rich and poor.

Entry points into 4IR

Dr Martin Dougiamas, an Australian computer scientist and the developer of the open source Moodle learning platform, urged African governments to improve ICT infrastructure and internet access, as an entry point to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Commenting on employment creation in Africa, Dougiamas argued that, whereas there was no shortage of entrepreneurs on the continent, the challenge is how such entrepreneurial activity can add value, employ more young people, and create sustainable livelihoods.

He suggested that interactive virtual tools could be used to add value to the African entrepreneurial acumen by providing opportunities to practise laboratory techniques and perform authentic workplace tasks online, while promoting science education in an attractive and exciting manner.

However, according to Dougiamas, connectivity is still a major issue in Africa and is holding back entrepreneurs.

Kandia Kamissoko Carmara, the Ivorian minister of national education, technical education and vocational training, noted that, although literacy levels have increased, there is an urgent need for African youth to be at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, which is the software engine driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Digital literacy

“African governments, universities and other training and education stakeholders should realise that, unless the youth are digitally literate, they will not be able to excel in their careers, or even participate in the emerging economies,” said Carmara.

What this implies is that African countries have limited choices for achieving social and economic progress, apart from skilling their workforce in the use of digital technology and developing the research and innovation potential of their professionals in order to build the competitiveness of their economies.

But what is still unclear is how Ubuntu, as a guiding philosophical thought in African development, can succeed where colonial and other Western developmental epistemologies have failed.