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. He came back with the New Era, citing that he realised that The Namibian was voluminous and therefore could cost more.
What was surprising was his utterance that he was not used to buying newspapers, let alone reading them. This is a grade 11 teen who was never exposed to any newspaper reading in a country where they are in circulation.
In addition, the young man was a learner at one of the prestigious urban secondary schools in the Zambezi region. Although this scenario does not deserve any generalisation of the current education system, it epitomises the state of many English teachers who fail to expose learners to extra newspaper reading, inherent from the colonial rule which banned some literature. Brock-Utne (2000) terms it the recolonisation of the African mind in which the child is stuffed with Western-style primary education. After the emancipation and independence of many African countries, the process of the annihilation of indigenous knowledge and philosophies continued.
Strange enough, many African national governments, Namibia included, failed to reintroduce the aspect of African cultural social life or associate themselves with it, as they feel that it is either irrelevant or primordial.
Kelly and Altbach (1984) define colonial education as a condition when one stronger nation takes control of a territory of another nation, either through the use of force or by acquisition, and in the process implements its own education system, which is quite contrary and foreign to the education system of the conquered nation. In the process, the colonised are forced to conform to the cultures and traditions of the colonisers. Colonising governments introduce schooling in order to strip the colonised people away from their indigenous learning structures and draw them towards the structures of the colonisers.
The impact of colonial education is that the implementation of a new education system leaves those who are colonised with a lack of identity, and a limited sense of their past.
The indigenous history and customs once practised and observed by the colonised people slowly slip away. The colonised become hybrids of two vastly different cultural systems. Colonial education makes it difficult to differentiate between the new, enforced ideas of the colonisers, and the formerly accepted native practices.
Intellectual colonialism: Hotep (2003) maintains that Europeans practised and perfected three types of colonialism over the years: territorial, intellectual and mental. Over the past five centuries, they developed the weaponry, logistics and tactics to conquer and colonise the land, knowledge and minds of the indigenous peoples of Africa, including other nations around the globe. In addition to colonising African land, Europeans also colonised African knowledge, not just to claim it as their own, but also to disconnect Africans from their heritage and culture. In echoing this sentiment, Ajamu (1997) calls this process ‘intellectual colonialism’. According to Hotep (2003), this imposition has been more pronounced among the Christianised, Western-trained African intellectuals.
Independent African governments, Namibia included, have the capacity to decolonise the minds of their people, but have failed to do so immediately after Independence, hence the prevalent status quo. Cosmetic changes brought in by the post-independent African governments do not impact much on the masses. The education systems remain the same, the textbooks do not reflect any post-independent nature of the country, and the practicality nature and reality of the country is not addressed. The political leadership scramble for the resources left behind by the colonisers, and very little is created to replace the ones left by the masters. The same colonial oppressive laws and policies enacted by the colonisers to repress the African masses are not changed but applied in the similar fashion, and in some cases even brutally implemented.
Corruption, discrimination on the basis of ethnic groups, nepotism, tribalism and all forms of evil which the nationalists were fighting for are even worse in all spheres of operations. One has to be connected to either be employed or promoted, at the expense of those who are not connected. It becomes a vicious circle, which is almost impossible to break without political will.
Mis-education: It is a concept coined by historian Woodson (1933) to describe the destructive effects of Western schools on the Black mind in using a curriculum and pedagogy that deliberately omits, distorts or trivialises the role of African people towards world history and their culture. Ngugi wa Thiongo (1986) maintains that Africans were taught to feel ashamed of their African names and heritage; and taught to admire, respect and adopt European heritage. African governments failed to embark on educational programmes which focus on disseminating the information pertaining to the pride of African education.
Mentacide: Another form of colonial education is mentacide, a term linked to genocide coined by Wright (1984) as a label for the European-orchestrated campaign to destroy the African mind as a prelude to destroying African people. Post-independent Africans have to compete with the ability and capacity like any other human race.
Divide and rule: According to Freire (1972), the principle of divide and rule was aimed at keeping the invaded divided in order for the minority invaders to be in power. The oppressors used any methods, including violence, to keep the majority divided. Concepts such as unity, organisation and struggle were labelled as dangerous. The oppressors went further by creating rifts among the oppressed by repressive methods of the government bureaucracy. This situation is still prevalent among African nations for the elite to remain in power.