Yusef Waghid ~ Our Universities Must Be Centers Of Open Debate For Africa To Make Political Progress

Photo: en.wikipedia.org

To understand what an African philosophy of education is and why it’s so important, consider the role that universities should play in any society.

Universities, no matter where they are, ought to be places where knowledge is internalized, questioned and considered. Such knowledge should respond to a university’s particular social, political and economic context. The pursuit of such knowledge happens in a quest for human development. What would a university be if its only purpose was to produce knowledge without considering its effects on a society and its people?

But it’s perhaps precisely this disjuncture—between what universities purport to do and what happens in society—that starts to explain why knowledge in Africa has become so misplaced. This has happened in several Arab and Muslim states, where some universities have seemingly become reluctant to encourage critical learning. Knowledge produced in such universities does not attend to public concerns, whether these are political, economic, social or cultural.

Read more: http://qz.com/our-universities-must-be-centers

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