Professors Mathabo Khau, Paul Webb and Proscovia Ssentamu
NEW DAWN FOR TEACHING: Mandela University academics Professor ‘Mathabo Khau and Professor Paul Webb and Ugandan academic Professor Proscovia Ssentamu have co-edited a groundbreaking anthology, Education research in African Contexts: Traditions and new beginnings for knowledge and impact. Credit: African Minds
The powerful book envisages a transformed education system incorporating the long-term benefits of learning methods that were traditionally used in indigenous societies: experiential learning, oral storytelling and practical engagement.
Published this year by African Minds, Education research in African Contexts: Traditions and new beginnings for knowledge and impact was co-authored by Mandela University academics Professor ‘Mathabo Khau of the Department of Postgraduate Studies and Distinguished Professor of Science Education Paul Webb, together with Professor Proscovia Ssentamu of the Uganda Management Institute.
“The drive for this book has been a shared commitment to evolving higher education in Africa through collaborative, context-sensitive research,” says Prof Khau.
“Themes range from indigenous methodologies and climate change to gender equity and academic resilience, showcasing the diverse and locally relevant approaches that inform and inspire change across educational sectors.”
Past informs present
The book shows how educational methodologies honour traditions while still embracing progressive change in both the classroom and lecture hall, says Prof Khau.
“African societies are oral societies, where knowledge is shared through stories in group settings around the fireplace, within homes, and in external settings such as the king’s kraal.
“The methodologies explained in this book embrace the African ethos of ‘collective and community’, where working together is promoted towards the common good.”
Akin to the concepts of ubuntu, imbizo and baraza, says Prof Khau, these methods can be used in classrooms in the design of pedagogical strategies that incorporate learning through telling stories, acting out stories in the form of theatre, or singing stories to help learners embody knowledge and remember content.
Honouring our heritage
African traditions can and must be utilised in education, and offer myriad benefits, explains Prof Khau.
“The Xhosa people say, ‘Inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili’ and the Sotho people say, ‘Motsebi oa tsela ke motsamai oa eona’ – both phrases allude to the fact that we learn from those who have gone through the journey: the elders.
“These sayings value experiential learning in the classroom. Learning by doing enables learners to embody the lesson and retain it. Thus, learners must travel the journey of education to be able to teach those who come after them.
The book provides invaluable insights for both educators and leaders seeking to support responsive, impactful and reimagined education systems from the ground up and beyond, she says, as it covers research from foundation phase to university.
“A good example is the ‘playway’ method for developing digital literacy in primary school children. We often think of digital literacy as the terrain for adults and well-educated people.
“This study shows that young children in primary schools can learn digital literacies if their agency is enabled through play. Let the children play, because the playground is their classroom!”
The classroom of the future
The education systems of many African countries were drafted upon copies of the colonial masters, says Prof Khau.
“These systems believed that knowledge resides in certain people only – but learning does not only happen within the four walls of a classroom. Most learning occurs in open spaces, where people can be themselves and interact with the material for learning.
“Young children learn best through play and ecopedagogy, for example: playing outside in the forest classroom, where they will not be told to ‘shut up and be still’.”
Participatory pedagogies are the future of education, she argues. “Future classrooms should be set up in such a way that there is freedom of engagement with each other and the material structures that enable learning.”
Ironically, rapid advances in technology have made more accessible a traditional, interactive approach to learning.
“We already have learners from different continents in one classroom learning from each other in collaborative online learning activities. Future classrooms will not be bound by space, time, or other structures. Education will not be the domain of the ‘norm’ only.”
Universities, too, could benefit from this new approach, she says. “The university of the future is one which does not believe that the only true science lies in the pages of a peer-reviewed journal, but rather, out in the field – in nature, and natural spaces, where people’s storied lives happen.”
Be the change
An important thread in the book was the argument that Africa should not wait to be saved, says Prof Khau.
“The skills and knowledge that Africa needs to solve her problems are within her own people. The type of research undertaken in this book shows the importance of valuing the knowledges in communities, and building on them.
“Communities have the agency to change their status quo; they only need enablers to make this happen. They do not need a saviour coming in to tell them what to do.
“Thus, the book argues for the importance of participatory research for social change, where change occurs while the research is happening; and not after the research, which sits in libraries without having any societal impact for the participants.
“We are all learners and educators. It is through learning from and with each other that we can produce the change that we want to see.
“It is high time that we borrow from the good practices of the past as we move forward, as exemplified in the sankofa theory. Using indigenous methodologies allows for scholarship that incorporates the good practices from the past or from elders, into the modern day advances in education and teachnology, so that we all feel that our education system belongs to us as a people.”
The authors hoped that readers would rethink and reimagine educational paradigms and methodologies that respect African realities, says Prof Khau.
“They encourage readers to explore new possibilities for inclusive and transformative research that will create African solutions for African problems.”
Learning in action
The concept of participatory, traditional learning described in the various essays in the anthology can best be illustrated with an example from everyday life, says Prof Khau.
“Many African communities enjoy a non-alcoholic home brewed beverage of fermented sorghum or maize called motoho (Sesotho), magewu (Setwana) or magou (Afrikaans).
“Sometimes, when there is no leavening for the brew, a peeled potato can be placed in the paste made of maize meal and water. The potato will enable the fermentation of the paste, which will rise as proof of fermentation taking pace.
“The teacher can then ask the learners what happened to the potato and what happened to the maize meal paste in terms of the sugar transfer and production of carbon dioxide.
“Using an example like this in class and allowing the learners to perform the experiment themselves, creates a connection between the home and the school, allowing the learners to see the relevance of school education in their daily lives.”