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Nyerere on Education: A Commentary By Jenerali Ulimwengu
1. Introduction
Nyerere on Education is essentially an effort to present, in one mid-size document, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere's thoughts on education. With selected speeches and writings, it traces Nyerere's basic educational philosophy, from the young anti-colonial campaigner leading Tanganyika's independence movement in the 1950s, through his years in power, to his time in retirement.
Throughout this long period, in which he played varied roles, we are afforded a glimpse of his unwavering conviction about the crucial importance of education in national development and the need to make the content of the education offered to young men and women relevant to the needs of their society.
Recognising education as a potent tool of human emancipation, he posits the need to do away with colonial education, which was tailored to service the colonial machine by producing colonial props, and which was imbued with fragments of the master's values system, and to erect, in its place, a cultural edifice more in tune with the needs and aspirations of a young nation in a hurry to eradicate poverty, disease and hunger.
2. Educational Inequalities and Inequities
Very early in his political career he saw the inequity inherent in the racially differentiated
education, in which race and colour determined the type of school Tanganyika's children
attended, with its destructive potential for the creation of a racially polarised nation.
In a statement made in 1956, he brought up the issue of the glaring inequality in the amount of resources allocated for the education of the different racial groups. All the three major racial groups – Europeans, Asians and Africans – were allocated the same amount of money from the colonial Treasury -- Pounds 800,000 each, regardless of the fact that there were only 25,000 Europeans and 70,000 Asians, compared to 8 million Africans. To quote Nyerere, whose bitter irony cannot be missed:
"All European children and Asian children receive primary education…Only
40% of the African children go to school. We are told that this is because there is
not enough money in the country to give education to every child; and that
unless Europeans can be sure that their children will receive education they will
not come to Tanganyika, and the African will suffer. So, this apparent injustice to
the African, like so many others, is done for the good of the African."
...
Throughout the book, we encounter a statesman grappling with the urgent issues of
development and aware of the crucial importance of the kind of education that is relevant to a young, backward nation eager to shake off the multi-facetted yoke of underdevelopment.
Mwalimu teaches us that education is not about good, imposing buildings and other physical structures but, rather, the imparting of knowledge and the inculcation of those values and attributes that make members of the society useful to themselves and their fellows. Education must be so designed that it frees the mind of the recipient, making him capable of questioning phenomena surrounding him, with a view to influencing them and using them for the betterment of his lot and that of the society....
[Continue reading at http://www.hakielimu.org/hakielimu/documents/document50nyerere_edu_commentary_en.pdf]
1. Introduction
Nyerere on Education is essentially an effort to present, in one mid-size document, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere's thoughts on education. With selected speeches and writings, it traces Nyerere's basic educational philosophy, from the young anti-colonial campaigner leading Tanganyika's independence movement in the 1950s, through his years in power, to his time in retirement.
Throughout this long period, in which he played varied roles, we are afforded a glimpse of his unwavering conviction about the crucial importance of education in national development and the need to make the content of the education offered to young men and women relevant to the needs of their society.
Recognising education as a potent tool of human emancipation, he posits the need to do away with colonial education, which was tailored to service the colonial machine by producing colonial props, and which was imbued with fragments of the master's values system, and to erect, in its place, a cultural edifice more in tune with the needs and aspirations of a young nation in a hurry to eradicate poverty, disease and hunger.
2. Educational Inequalities and Inequities
Very early in his political career he saw the inequity inherent in the racially differentiated
education, in which race and colour determined the type of school Tanganyika's children
attended, with its destructive potential for the creation of a racially polarised nation.
In a statement made in 1956, he brought up the issue of the glaring inequality in the amount of resources allocated for the education of the different racial groups. All the three major racial groups – Europeans, Asians and Africans – were allocated the same amount of money from the colonial Treasury -- Pounds 800,000 each, regardless of the fact that there were only 25,000 Europeans and 70,000 Asians, compared to 8 million Africans. To quote Nyerere, whose bitter irony cannot be missed:
"All European children and Asian children receive primary education…Only
40% of the African children go to school. We are told that this is because there is
not enough money in the country to give education to every child; and that
unless Europeans can be sure that their children will receive education they will
not come to Tanganyika, and the African will suffer. So, this apparent injustice to
the African, like so many others, is done for the good of the African."
...
Throughout the book, we encounter a statesman grappling with the urgent issues of
development and aware of the crucial importance of the kind of education that is relevant to a young, backward nation eager to shake off the multi-facetted yoke of underdevelopment.
Mwalimu teaches us that education is not about good, imposing buildings and other physical structures but, rather, the imparting of knowledge and the inculcation of those values and attributes that make members of the society useful to themselves and their fellows. Education must be so designed that it frees the mind of the recipient, making him capable of questioning phenomena surrounding him, with a view to influencing them and using them for the betterment of his lot and that of the society....
[Continue reading at http://www.hakielimu.org/hakielimu/documents/document50nyerere_edu_commentary_en.pdf]
