A Brief Perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals

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WRITTEN BY: Asanya Boluwatife Ndidi The unanimous agreement of the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly to the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development in 2015 produced one of the most ambitious and inclusive global aspirations in history. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. Targeted at committing members states to ensure greater inclusivity, end poverty and push the world to a more sustainable path. The SDGs are broad and interdependent thus begetting the question as to how well these broad global aspirations are likely to result in implementable developments especially in developing countries. The inclusion of so many goals without a hierarchy of priority and without reference to inherent contradictions that are likely to result in conflict between the goals may have unintended negative consequences which may inhibit the timely/e...
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The Current State of the Traditional Forms of Education in Africa

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The Current State of the Traditional Forms of Education in Africa
By Maame Ama Bainson

Traditional African education was an integral feature of most African communities in pre-colonial times, as it was used to preserve a people's identity and culture in various forms. Traditional African education, which was passed from one generation to another, was usually by word-of-mouth and cultural rituals. After achieving political independence, most African countries maintained the indigenous practice of instilling moral and ethical values in learners and directing education to meet the communal and social needs of the society. However, these efforts to Africanize the curriculum did not result in long-term benefits for the people of Africa (Omolewa,2007). As a result, traditional African education has gradually declined, though it still exists in various forms today.

According to Adeyemi & Adeyinka (2002), parents administer the traditional form African education directly or indirectly in our world today. They play a crucial role in the upbringing and preservation of the culture of their children as parents serve as the first agents of socialization for a child. This indicates that unlike pre-colonial times where the entire society was responsible for passing on varied types knowledge to younger ones, traditional forms of education are offered by the immediate parents and guardians of younger members of our society. This system has preserved the essence of traditional forms of African education to some extent as a substantial fraction of members of the society today still possess a sense of belonging as parents and other immediate family members inculcate tradition and culture in modern upbringing.

Another institution whose roles currently come close to African traditional forms of education are vocational and technical schools. A basic definition for vocational education is offered by Wikipedia (2022) as a form education that prepares a person to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. African traditional forms of education used to pass down basic technical and survival skills such as farming, fishing, wine-making etc. Vocational schools may not teach farming, fishing etc. but unlike westernized education, they specialize in imparting practical skills that make an individual ready to be integrated into production, much like African traditional forms of education in pre-colonial times.

To summarize, the traditional form of African education is currently declining as efforts to fully restore it have proven futile. It is no longer a strong aspect of African lives in our world today, as the westernized form of education remains an African's first point of call when the term education is mentioned. Although, as previously stated, the concept of African traditional education has found its way into modern civilization, Mosewuenyane (2013) contends that all possible means of reviving and instilling traditional forms of education into westernized forms of education must be employed, as they are bound to significantly contribute to the development of our noble continent.

 

 

 

References
Bah-Diallo, A. (n.d.). Topical and sectoral studies. Retrieved March 01, 2022, from https://www.jica.go.jp/jica-ri/IFIC_and_JBICI-Studies/english/publications/reports/study/topical/sub_sahara/keynote_1.html

Decker, C. (2016). Education and the Study of Africa.

Falola, T., & Fleming, T. (n.d.). African Civilization: From the pre-colonial to the modern day. Retrieved March 1, 2022.

Mosweunyane, D. (2013). The African Educational Evolution: From Traditional Training to Formal Education. doi:10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0260

Ojiambo, P. O. (2018). Education in Postcolonial Africa.

Omolewa, M. (2007). Traditional African Modes of Education : Their Relevance in the Modern World.

Vocational education. (2022, March 16). Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational_education

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved March 01, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Africa


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