Author: Prof Makala Lilemba (Prof Makala Lilemba )

According to Spielvogel (2017), the university as we know it with faculty, students and degrees was not a product of ancient Greece or Rome, but of the High Middle Ages, which spanned from 1000 to 1300AD. 

The Mafwe community has established that educational activities which they cherished for centuries have been minimised or completely abolished through Western education.

I recently sent a former grade 11 nephew to a nearby filling station shop to buy two newspapers, New Era and The Namibian, with concise instructions.

Malcolm X once said, “if you want to hide something from black people, put it in a book.” Although the quotation was used in the American context, it has been widely applied worldwide to humiliate Africans. 

On the first day of the new school year, all teachers in one school received the following message through a memorandum from the principal: Dear Teacher, I am a survivor of Cassinga. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Machine guns built by learned engineers. 

During Africa’s colonisation, the West brought foreign and irrelevant ideologies to the indigenous people. In many cases, the African was downgraded and equated with animals that are driven by instincts. 

For many years, there have been claims and counterclaims as to who is entitled to possess knowledge. 

Namibia clocked 33 years of independence on 21 March 2023. As it is always sung, Namibian independence was not ushered on a platter, but it came by shedding the blood of many Namibians. 

Shortly after Independence, the Mozambican radical political leader, Samora Machel in trying to make education and literacy available to all, hatched the approach of, “We are Building a School.” 

In his book ‘The Accusing Finger’, Nyambe Wina (1992), a Zambian novelist, narrates an incident in which an officially engaged lady points an accusing finger at her fiancé for having put her in a woman way, despite his denial.