A robust Afrocentric teaching model needs continuous critique

The Culturo-Techno-Contextual Approach (CTCA) is an instructional theory propounded by Professor Peter Akinsola Okebukola of Nigeria’s Lagos State University. Its stated purpose is that teaching and learning should be based on students’ cultural background, utilising the available technology, and situating it in the locational context of both the student and teacher.

In the 16 April African edition of University World News, Fred Awaah pointed out that CTCA is an Afrocentric instructional theory in that it was developed in the African continent and recognises African culture. He also asserted a universal educational truth, that students learn more effectively and efficiently when learning is situated within their cultural referents and milieu.

CTCA is truly a homemade instructional theory given that, after many years of political independence, Africa continues to borrow instructional theories, methods and approaches from Euro-America. Despite the fact that CTCA was originally developed for teaching science, it is applicable to all levels of an education system and all places of formal learning – classrooms, laboratories, field trips and e-learning – and to all subject areas. Another important fact is that CTCA is anchored in three philosophical perspectives: ethno-philosophy, ethno-technology and contextualism.

It’s important to consider the assumptions about and limitations of CTCA. The main reasons for this are two-fold: an educator or instructor who wants to implement CTCA will have to ensure that certain conditions exist before CTCA's full benefits can be realised; and, secondly, that some modifications are needed for CTCA to be effective.

Anatomy of CTCA

CTCA consists of four major components, regardless of the learning context in which it is implemented.

Phase one comprises the teacher or instructor informing students ahead of time about the concept or lesson for the next session of class. Students have two responsibilities at this point: to personally reflect on the topic or concept, and to use computers, smartphones or tablets to research and summarise internet resources on indigenous beliefs, practices or usage related to that topic.

Phase two involves the instructor commencing the class by dividing students into mixed-ability groups. Students are required to share their personal and internet summaries on indigenous knowledge and practices within their groups. The group leader is required to summarise the group discussion and give it to the teacher-instructor.

In phase three, the instructor has to emphasise the indigenous perspectives that the group leaders have presented and relate the whole lesson to the students' locational environment.

The final phase involves the instructor sending a maximum 320-character summary of the lesson to students via WhatsApp. After the first lesson it is up to the group leaders to send such summaries to students.

Assumptions and limitations

CTCA assumes that every student has access to the internet via computers, smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately, in the African continent access to the internet is limited and a huge disparity exists between rural and urban regions. Though many students have access to mobile phones, not many have access to the internet.

Secondly, CTCA assumes that class sizes are small enough for teachers and-or instructors to implement a grouping strategy for teaching and learning. In the tertiary education sector in Africa enrolment is exploding and an instructor could have as many as 200-400 students in a class instead of the recommended ratio of 1:30 for students in the humanities and social sciences, and 1:20 or 1:15 for students enrolled in the sciences. Consequently, implementing a grouping strategy for CTCA becomes unwieldy and for that reason ineffective.

Thirdly, the instructor will have to assume the role of facilitator of learning by allowing the groups the autonomy to engage in discussion or debate without fear of restrictions or interference by the instructor. Certainly, the instructor could move from one group to another to listen to the groups' discussions.

This would allow the instructor to know what is being discussed in the groups, so he or she can correct misconceptions or misperceptions, and defend, question or assist in elaborating students' perspectives. However, the instructor is unlikely to have enough time to read the summaries that the group leaders are supposed to submit and then comment effectively on the group discussions.

CTCA is not suitable for instructors who are not prepared to give up the role of information provider, authority figure or controller of the learning process. These are the traditional roles of instructors and teachers in African educational institutions and those who are deeply attached to these roles will find it difficult to embrace CTCA. That is, an instructor must be comfortable and committed to student-centred teaching.

Fourthly, CTCA indirectly makes the assumption that every lesson’s content is borrowed from non-African sources. This is why students are required to reflect on and use the internet to do a search on topics or concepts in relation to indigenous knowledge, practices and beliefs. While African instructors continue to borrow immensely from teaching materials and other pedagogical tools from Euro-America, some tertiary education instructors, especially those from South Africa, have successfully integrated African perspectives into their courses as they pursue a policy of inclusion.

Therefore, if an instructor is teaching natural resources management from an indigenous perspective, for instance, the need for students to search the internet for indigenous resources on that topic or concept is superfluous.

Fifth, CTCA also assumes that the internet resources on indigenous African cultural knowledge, practices and worldview are trustworthy. The internet is a technological platform where people can post or upload anything.

While CTCA prides itself on incorporating modern technology (and hence the emphasis on computers, mobile phones, tablets and the internet for research), we need to ask whether all the sources of information on the internet are trustworthy and how students can critically evaluate the information they have searched from the internet to identify which is trustworthy and which is not.

If African students want to learn and understand African cultural knowledge and perspectives, they have to engage in conversation with elders, chiefs, queens, parents and relatives, not the internet. Indeed, many don’t have access to the internet. The fact is that only a small number of aspects of African cultural beliefs, knowledge and practices are written down, let alone posted on the internet.

It should be emphasised that one of the crucial projects that African educators, scholars and researchers should undertake is to document African indigenous knowledge and skills before they are either forgotten or all the stakeholders die.

Sixth, CTCA assumes implicitly that the instructor is competent in African indigenous beliefs, knowledge and practices, in order to be able to emphasise indigenous perspectives, correct any misconceptions and bring the indigenous perspectives to the centre of lessons in class, laboratories, on field trips or on e-learning platforms.

Nevertheless, empirical evidence indicates that the fact that an instructor is an indigenous African does not necessarily mean that he or she is competent in African indigenous knowledge and culture. It follows that an instructor who opts to implement CTCA must be knowledgeable in African indigenous cultural beliefs, knowledge and practices.

Seventh, CTCA indirectly aims to give African indigenous perspectives a permanent footprint in instructional programming, delivery and discourse. If CTCA is to be effectively implemented, it could ultimately lead to indigenisation of some aspects of schooling and education in Africa.

This is a noble goal, but much more is needed to support learning activities. On their own, these are not sufficient to promote African indigenous culture in school, college or university organisations. The whole institution has a complementary role to play by ensuring that it validates and respects indigenous African cultural perspectives, practices and beliefs through policies, regulations and other administrative actions.

A crucial point about African culture should be noted. African culture is not homogeneous; there are regional and local variations, though more commonalities exist than differences. In addition, African culture, like others, is not without controversy. There are some African cultural practices and beliefs that an African like myself deem detrimental to the rights of women, children and marginalised minority groups.

Thus, extreme care must be taken in our enthusiasm to romanticise African culture and use it as an exclusive criterion for judging the desirability, usefulness or appropriateness of ideas or concepts. We should not, under any circumstance, sacrifice our sense of natural logic, justice (fairness) and human rights on the altar of cultural conformity.

Further, the CTCA implementation model suggests linearity – the components are arranged in order and each component is well-defined. Teaching is so dynamic an activity that any suggestion of linearity should be avoided. For instance, in some situations it may be more appropriate for instructors to introduce a topic or concept to a class and afterwards ask students to conduct research as part of class assignment.

At other times it may be more effective for students to have class discussions in pairs rather than in groups. Also instructors may introduce variety into the learning activities by encouraging individual, pair or group presentations of search results to ignite whole class discussion. Instead of the instructor sending students a summary of what happened in class, they may ask students to write a maximum two-page reflection paper on what they learned about a topic or concept in class.

The suggested implementation model for CTCA does not allow whole class discussion, debate, commentary or questioning. Moreover, the meaning of locational context should not be limited to the institution's immediate surroundings or environs. It should be defined as any range of natural, physical and social environment within the crucible of students' imagination, observation and experience.

Lastly, CTCA does not make any references to a particular language of instruction and learning. It assumes that teaching and learning could take place in any language without negatively impacting the CTCA objective of making learning accessible to all students. Nevertheless, language is an integral part of culture and it helps us make sense of the world. The use of colonial languages (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish) for teaching and learning is more likely to defeat some of the predicted outcomes of CTCA.

The need for continuous critique

Without a doubt, CTCA is a useful instructional theory that can be applied to teaching business studies, social sciences, humanities and some concepts and topics in natural and physical sciences. However, not all the concepts and topics in the natural and physical sciences are amenable to CTCA.

Depending on the context of teaching and learning, modifications are needed to make the theory beneficial. Nonetheless, similar to its antecedents in the United States such as culturally responsive teaching, culturally relevant teaching and place-based pedagogy, CTCA needs continuous, rigorous critique in order for it to evolve to become a robust instructional tool.

Eric Fredua-Kwarteng is an educator and policy consultant in Canada.