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1. Introduction
The system of education imposed on Africans during colonisation stripped them of their culture, destroyed their traditional and political institutions to replace them with foreign ones. This eventually led many educated Africans to prefer foreign cultures to the detriment of their own. Schools were the effective agents used by the colonisers to impoverish the socio-economic and political structures put in place by Africans. African languages became adulterated with foreign languages (English, French or Portuguese) that were used to perpetrate the stability of Africa. Thus, schooling in Africa is done in the languages that are alien to both the teachers and the learners, with a curriculum that does not acknowledge the way of life of the African child. All these allegations are pointers that the curriculum in African institutions has to be reviewed so as to reposition Africa to a more functional, dynamic and viable continent free from imperialism.
Historically, the word curriculum has been used to describe the subjects taught during the classical age of Greek civilisation. Today, we have a plethora of definitions of curriculum, which can be envisaged from different perspectives. However, for the purpose of this study, we will centre our definition of curriculum in the context of education. Curriculum is important in the trajectory of a learner at all levels of education. It sets goals and strategies to clear expectations for both teachers and students about what ought to be the end product of the course. Curriculum involves courses, contents, subjects, learning experience, planning, and many more. According to Akudolu (2012), “curriculum is concerned with analysis of educational goals of a society, the selection and organisation of contents to achieve those goals, the presentation and learning of the contents, and assessment to ascertain the degree of congruence among the goals, organised contents, and learn content.” In the same line of thought, Obanya and Fadoju (2008: 30) view curriculum as:
a process that involves translating the nation’s educational goals into down-to-earth realities and of making informed choices on how the realities can be implemented to ensure that the ultimate goal of education derived from the nation’s overall development goals are attained through the concrete activities of the schools and the entire education system.
As for Van Wyk and Higgs (2012: 171), the curriculum “ ... is designed to ensure that knowledge is conveyed in a systematic planned way so as to impart an amalgam of knowledge and skills that are determined to be appropriate and necessary to the society and the time.” All these definitions point to the fact that the curriculum is designed to focus on the development of the individual and the society at large. Curriculum is important in setting up a person’s view because it imposes an order into what is taught by a teacher in an educational institution. In other words, it describes the totality of experiences a student will have in an institution and most importantly, it communicates clear expectations for both teachers and students about what ought to be achieved at the end of the programme. It is often said that education is the backbone of every nation as it is key to its development. This implies that there is no substitute for education for better living and progress in society. And to achieve its end role, a viable curriculum needs to be put in place. Therefore, considering the crucial role curriculum plays in the educational development of a school, students, and society, it is imperative that the stakeholders in education in every nation take appropriate measures to ensure that it is well designed to focus on the developmental ability of the child for a better society. This paper explores the possibility of reviewing the curriculum of African higher education with a view to harmonising it to reflect the African targeted goals. Thus, we shall examine how African stakeholders in education can come together to harmonise African tertiary institutions’ courses, in terms of “going back to the source” as Fanon put it, and developing the Science and Technology that will move Africa forward. The study further examines and highlights the need to harmonise the African curriculum by tailoring it to reflect the specific needs of the continent; that is, it should feature African local contents and skills that will address the problems of Africa effectively. Thus, there is a need to focus on the restructuring of the curriculum with a view to making it more functional for Africans.
2. Curriculum Education in Africa
It has been confirmed in several ways that no country can hope to prosper and develop without educated citizens. Even during the colonial era, the need to give formal education to Africans arose when colonial masters suddenly realised that they could not continue to sideline Africans if they wanted to accelerate the exploitation of their local resources. Prior to that, education was left in the hands of missionaries who established schools in various regions of the colonies. The goal of the missionary education then was to train literate individuals for subaltern positions in the local churches. Those trained also served as interpreters in the community. But as the colonies started expanding and becoming more prosperous, colonial masters saw the need to educate Africans that would help them in their tasks at the local level. Africans were mainly trained as menial workers, such as interpreters, clerical officers, road and railroad labourers, house boys, labourers in industries, etc. The curriculum then was made of mere arithmetic, reading and writing in English, French or Portuguese languages depending on the official language of the colony, and basic knowledge in hygiene. However, educating Africans during that period was to make them useful to the colonial system, not to offer them opportunities for advancement. It must therefore be emphasised that the establishment of schools in the colonial era did not have the primary role of making Africans educated or skilled but rather of developing the industries of the metropolis. This was due to the fact that the colonial hegemony was more interested in extracting the continent’s wealth than establishing functioning nations. Nor did they envisage Africans playing any significant role in the colonial government or in the affairs of their States. That was why in those days white and black students attended different schools, because the curriculum and the objectives were different.
Notwithstanding, the more workforce the colonial system needed, the more the opportunities were given to Africans for more advanced skills. Such opportunities included instances where the best of them were sent abroad to learn more skills.
Education of Africans from the post-colonial era to the present day has encountered a lot of obstacles. Thus, there is a need to highlight the evolution of higher education in Africa to reveal a few striking happenings about its changing roles from pre-colonial up to the 90s and the various responsibilities attached to them. The existence of higher education in Africa can be traced back to the pre-colonial era. Ajayi et al. (1996) reported the existence of one such academy referred to as the Alexandrian Academy or the Universal Museum Library at Alexandria between 331 and 642 AD. It is also on record that in 859 AD, the Al-Quarawiyyin University was established at Fez in Morocco, while Al-Azhar University at Cairo was established in 970 AD in Egypt (Lulat 2005). Prominent among them also was the University of Timkuktu (in present day Mali). For centuries, those institutions of higher learning maintained their status as Islamic schools, and Al-Azhar is the Famous and the oldest functioning University in the world today. The curricula of these schools were tailored to suit their avowed Islamic injunctions. The emphasis was therefore to teach the tenets of Islam and train clerics and judges.
Later, in 1827, Fourah Bay College was founded in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It was the first western-like institution of higher education, established by the Anglican Church as an institution for training clergymen and schoolmasters. Others were Liberia College in Monrovia, Liberia, also founded in the 19th century, and the South African College in Cape Town (1829); and the South African Native College, founded in 1916 to educate blacks. Let us be reminded that South Africa was the country that most suffered from apartheid for a long time. So, just as the Muslims of the North of the continent brought with them Qur’anic schools, so did the missionaries set up Christian schools along the coast for evangelism. However, for centuries, the Qur’anic schools restricted their curriculum to religious texts written in Arabic. Meanwhile, the Christian schools taught in European languages and spread evangelism, but the scope was eventually widened to accommodate more information.
So, higher education from pre-colonial to colonial eras was mainly focussed on religious knowledge and it was established by the British Colonial Government. The policy of assimilation in the French colonies did not allow the rulers to invest in higher education on time, as the first West African Institute for higher learning was established in 1950 in Senegal, Dakar; it was later followed by that of Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and Brazzaville of the Democratic Republic of Congo respectively. The French colonial masters preferred to send the best brains to France for further studies so as to integrate them better into the French way of life, while ripping them off of their culture. By such indoctrination, the literate African saw himself belonging more to the European society than to Africa, having imbibed the French civilisation. That was the concept of assimilation conceived by the French to make Africans deny their original identity, sweeping aside their languages and customs while instilling a sense of inferiority complex in them. In the same line of thought, Jegede (2024) also affirms that “the British administration promoted the use of English as the official language, marginalizing indigenous languages. This policy not only reinforced social stratification but also laid the groundwork for post-independence language politics.”
After World War I, higher education institutions devoid of religious obligations sprang up in the English colonies. They were all affiliated with London University before getting their autonomous status after independence. Among them were Makerere University of Uganda, founded in 1922, Egerton University of Kenya (1939), University of Ghana (1948), and University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1948), to mention but a few.
Mention also must be made that since all the institutions were affiliated with the Metropolis, the curriculum at that period would no doubt reflect the purpose and objectives of education, which among others was to drift Africans away from their culture through brainwashing, and that had a lot of negative effects on the African man. The African was continuously made to understand that he lacked civilisation, he had no culture, so he had to learn the language of his masters and accept their culture and religion, for him to be considered as a ‘civilised person.’ The curriculum therefore intensified the teaching of English/French or Portuguese as the case may be, with the introduction of vocational courses like Agriculture, Economics, Environmental health, etc. All these were learnt on the surface since the development of Africa was not the bone of contention.
As time went on, before independence, the number of Africans sent to Europe for further studies increased, purposely to speed up the industrialisation of Europe. Fortunately, educating Africans brought with it a lot of awareness. While in Europe, the practical skills they learned in school, along with the status and exposures gained, prepared young Africans to agitate for colonial reform that later led to the independence of many African countries.
After independence, the number of tertiary institutions drastically increased because it became imperative to train enough capable hands to fill the vacuum left behind by the colonial rulers. In view of the latter, African leaders forged ahead to give maximal financial support to higher education because that is the sector that would produce the skilled labour needed for the development of the continent. However, the curriculum continued to be controlled by the former colonial masters, and it was seen as a replica of the European model.
At the time of independence, there were few trained Africans to take over the colonial institutions including higher education institutions. African leaders then hurriedly braced up to face the challenges by creating more institutions of learning. Even at that, the former colonial powers of Britain and France were very much involved in assisting their former colonies set up their institutions. In that regard, foreign aid came in the form of personnel (administrators, teachers and volunteers), shipping of equipment and granting scholarships to outstanding African students. That also explains why, in the seventies and eighties, secondary and post-secondary schools were filled with foreign staff. And in fact, the few Africans who were employed among them, were those who studied in Europe. Little wonder the curricula at post-independence were significantly filtered with foreign ideologies. Even though the curricula were said to have improved from the former, African languages were not deemed fit to be accommodated in the school programmes. In Arts, preference was given to English, French or Portuguese, the languages of the super powers. Greek and Latin also made the list. At that period, African literature had not seen it bearings, Lagard et Michard, Shakespeare texts, poetries of Jean de Lafontaine, Victor Hugo, etc. were taught in English and French Literature, thus disconnecting Africans with their immediate environment. This, according to Park (2023), “... can lead to the erosion of cultural diversity and loss of languages that are important to local communities”. Those courses are still very much prominent in our 21th century curriculum. Grammar courses were also found in the programme. Furthermore, History and Geography of Europe were prevalent while those of the immediate environment were neglected. And whenever African history was mentioned, it was always filled with a lot of controversies because Africans were not a “civilised people.”
In the field of the Sciences, traditional medicine was outrightly rejected to champion the orthodox one, leaving many herbalists confused, uncertain of their skills and redundant. Be it as it may, the curriculum of the medical school could not handle all the tropical diseases found in Africa. In the field of Agriculture, not much was done in injecting new skills into the curriculum, rather, many African countries turned to monoculture to favour demands of the “Masters” in exportation. Many more courses which could not be captured in this paper were also taught. However, the bone of contention is that for a long time, the ancient colonies did not relax their clutches on Africans, with the flimsy excuse that they were not ripe enough for independence. The implication is to perpetually put Africans in a disadvantageous position where they cannot be developed like the colonist. That further explains why after their so-called independence, the institutions of higher learning in Africa were all populated by foreigners from the former colonies, thus perpetuating their hegemony, i.e., making the African child to feel more uneasy with his background on his own terrain. And as Fomunyam (2022: 146) succinctly put it:
African colonial masters epistemised Africa, meaning that they killed off African knowledge systems. For example, most countries in Africa adopted the language of colonial masters as their lingua franca. Students are mandated to speak English or French, undermining African indigenous languages. African colonial masters thus, epistemised African epistemology by making African believe their language to be inferior, complicated, and impracticable in institutions of learning.
Relegating African languages to the background will not doubt “ ... create a sense of linguistic inequality, where those who do not speak the dominant language are at a disadvantage in terms of access to education, employment, healthcare, and other opportunities,” as confirmed by Park (2023: 84).
Despite the challenges, higher education in Africa recorded some good achievements between 1960 and 1970. Some universities like the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and Makarere University of Uganda were listed among the best universities in the world. But as from 1980, according to Woldegiorgis and Doevenspeck (2013), and Atteh (2021), the quality of education started declining in Africa due to some economic crisis. The situation could be summarised thus:
... most African universities started tumbling down under the pressures of deteriorating socio-political and economic conditions of 1980s. African economic conditions started to crumble when the continent could not manage to penetrate into the global market with weak bargaining power in international trade.
As a result, “... African higher education has suffered from underfunding, deterioration of academic and research infrastructure and unsatisfactory service condition for staff. Not only have these problems negatively affected the quality of higher education in Africa, but also the overall development of African countries” (Yego 2016: 52). Inadequate political commitment and financing, led to poor learning outcomes, weak education system capacity and weak links with the world of work. Thus, while progress has been made in bringing more students to school, the results in terms of quality and quantity have been far from the targets, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Coupled with the socio-economic problems is the curriculum which is irrelevant because it does not address African problems and peculiarities.
That curriculum, according to Fomunyam (2020: 8305), is “westernized and Eurocentric.” He further explains that “eurocentrism is the practice of focusing on European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding European culture as pre-eminent.” It is therefore not surprising to discover later that the curriculum which was inherited from the former colonial masters is neither effective nor suitable to the African situation. It then behooves African leaders and all stakeholders in education to come up with a meaningful curriculum that will address the African situation.
3. Curriculum and Curriculum Review: A Conceptual Framework
Curriculum plays a critical role in the transformation of education, and considering the decay in the African education sector, it becomes imperative to design a curriculum that will conform to the African reality. In that light, we shall examine the theory of Dewey (1938), which posits that children learn better when they interact with their environment and are involved in the school learning plan. As an instrumentalist and pragmatist Dewey believed that practice and theory are linked in order to achieve the required educational goals. In his book, Work Experience and Education, published in 1938, he analysed his concept of traditional and progressive education. For him, traditional education focuses on curriculum heritage and is geared towards imposing a learning pattern on students. “It consists of a rigid regimentation, ignoring the capacities and interests of the learner. It encourages an attitude of docility, receptivity, and obedience among others” (Dewey 1938: 18). As for a progressive education, it is students centred, taking the students’ interest into consideration. However, that theory was later replaced by that of continuity and interaction. That is, while continuity will propel learners to continue learning, interaction would meet the learners’ needs. He believed that experience and the environment have great impacts on learners. He wrote that “In their relationship with each other, continuity and interaction provide the education significance and value of an experience” (p. 45).
Dewey’s philosophy is based on the idea that learning occurs through experience and requires hands-on activities that directly relate to the learners’ lives. That’s what he called “experiential education.” In experiential education, learning occurs through actually doing something and then reflecting on and learning from the process. It combines active learning with concrete experience and reflection. Discussing the benefits of experiential education, Dewey (1938: 74) affirms that “... it is a common precept in education that the beginning of instruction starts with the experience learners already have.” Going by Dewey’s theory one would assert that it was the traditional education that was inherited from the colonial rulers. An education that is rigid and lacks African contents, and has no regard for the learner’s interest and development. The bulk of the courses taught is alien to the environment of the African child starting from the language of instruction which is neither spoken at home nor in the vicinity. It was indeed a system that “encourages learners to be docile and obedient, producing an environment where learners are encouraged to listen and learn but not necessarily to think for themselves” (Dewey 1938: 74).
Moreover, the methodology used is not task-based as it is more theoretical than practical, and the activities are not directly related to learner’s life. Despite having courses in Mechanical Engineering for years, African countries are yet to come out with a bicycle manufacturing industry not to talk of vehicles. It is therefore imperative to call for a curriculum review on the content and purpose of higher education curricula in Africa, and opt for an indigenous knowledge system that will not only bring development to Africa, but that will also connect the learner more to its roots.
4. Curriculum Review and Harmonisation of Courses in African Higher Education
By curriculum review, we mean that the one in place is not adequate and there’s a need for urgent intervention. So, to review a curriculum is to give it a critical and thorough assessment and evaluate its effectiveness after it has been implemented, reflecting on what the curriculum has achieved and what and what it has failed to achieve, with the purpose of making necessary amendments for the future. Curriculum development in higher education in Africa has received different criticism from experts, and it has been asserted not to be serving the purpose of national development. Africans can read, write and engage in meaningful discussions in the languages imported for them, but they are not capable of lifting their countries up from underdevelopment. Agbaje (2023) asserts that:
... the average rate of unemployment in Africa stands at roughly 8% (Statista 2023) compared to an average of 6% in Europe (Europa 2023) ... Also, it is estimated that 244 million children between the ages of six and 18 are out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO 2022). Consequently, it is expedient that we interrogate conventional modes of knowledge production in Africa, considering that external Eurocentric and Western ideals substantially inform our educational standards.
Besides, considering the critical roles higher education plays in society, one will not but wonder why African leaders display a lackadaisical attitude towards education instead of keeping an eye on it and investing in it generously. It is worthy to note that budget allocation to education is usually low in African countries. As such, the education sector has remained underfunded as many African countries’ budget allocations are below the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommendation of 26 percent for developing countries. According to Nabena et al. (2024), for example, the Nigerian government’s total expenditure on education in 2022 was 12%. This is still inadequate compared to UNESCO’s benchmark aforementioned. However, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in Nigeria took it upon itself to always draw the attention of the Federal Government to the downgraded state of education in a view to reviving it. It is in that line of thought that Atteh (2021: 36) asserts that “From all indication, Africa is lagging behind over developing regions in terms of public expenditures particularly on education, availability of educational facilities, equal access to education, adequate pools of qualified teachers, and sufficient numbers of professional and skilled workers.”
Our discussion all along is based on the fact that the curriculum used in African tertiary institutions has not met the desired expectations. Thus, there’s an urgent need for education stakeholders to come up with a curriculum that is functional and relates directly to African needs for development.
5. Harmonisation of Courses in African Higher Institutions
Curriculum in higher education in Africa has been given a lot of attention since independence, especially in the context of institutional curriculum review. Nevertheless, Africa remains the least developed continent in terms of education enrollment and technological innovation, making the curriculum to be weak. Enhancing therefore the quality of education is one of the major aims of harmonisation of higher education in Africa in particular.
The curriculum of higher education in the African continent has always been influenced by European forces. This is because Europe wants to strengthen its strategic relationship with Africa to ensure and sustain its political and economic domination. It simply means that the vestiges of the colonial footprint on African education are still evident and enduring.
Nevertheless, African leaders have continued to make efforts to ensure that quality education is given in all higher education institutions, having realised its role in promoting economic growth and social development and more specifically the link between higher institutions and the labour market. Many organisations or groups have been created to strengthen collaboration among African governments and tertiary institutions in a view to improving the effectiveness of development assistance. One of such groups is the Working Group on Higher Education (WGHE) established in 1989, which houses many other associations, like the ADEA1.
ADEA activities are aimed at enhancing Institutional and technical capacities within Africa establishing networks for the sharing of information and the dissemination of successful strategies and innovation. Within this context, ADEA fosters continental, regional, and cross-country exchanges as well as partnerships with civil society institutions. (Hoosen et al. 2009: 12)
Many more organisations like the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to the African Unity (AU) are all for the purpose of strengthening collaborative efforts and partnerships geared towards the mobilisation of required resources for the revitalisation of tertiary education in Africa. Mention should be made of the AAU founded in Rabat, Morocco in 1967, which has its base in Accra, Ghana. The association, which cuts across languages and other divides, provides a platform for research, reflection, consultation, debates, cooperation and collaboration on issues regarding higher education. It also covers higher education institutional leaders and policy-makers from all parts of the continent and handles issues relating to African higher education and development. In actual fact, there are sub-groups in every region: Association of West African Universities (AWAU), West African Research and Innovation Management Association (WARIMA), North African Regional Office (NARO), etc., are all integral parts of AAU. We also have the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA), Higher Education Resource Services-East Africa (HERS-EA), etc. The list of the Association is endless.
There is also the Bologna Process established by the Europeans to address the major challenges facing their higher education. It is rated as the highest strategy through which many countries, especially those in Africa, draw their inspiration from, not minding that their problems are not the same. It also failed because it did not conform with the African ethos. Even though Charlier and Croche (2009) asserts that “... the Bologna model’s transfer is not a success”, Adamu (2021) affirms that nevertheless, “... it is becoming more and more evident that African higher education policy makers prefer and tend to rely on ‘adapting’ the Bologna Process in the harmonisation of higher education in Africa”, notwithstanding its failure to solve the Europeans Higher education challenges. The European Union came up with various frameworks (Arusha Convention in 1981; Continental Education Strategy for Africa, 2016–2025; Plan of Action for the Second Decade of Education for Africa, 2006–2015) to support the harmonisation of higher education institutions in Africa. But fortunately, or unfortunately, all these reforms geared towards improving the quality of higher education in Africa are influenced by the European Union, which dictates the tune. African stakeholders on education, on their part, lack political commitments to higher education reforms and lack of contextualisation in adopting reforms and strategies. They are fond of relying on their former colonial masters to finance their projects, therefore promoting perpetual dependency on the old colonial legacies. So, more often than not, the reforms are not implemented to the letter because of lack of funding and political will, and they may not understand the policy that was imposed on them. It is therefore imperative for African leaders to give serious attention to education generally and higher education in particular if Africa has to meet up with her counterparts in the world. Africa should refrain from adopting anything alien to her environment if she truly wants to partake in innovations that reflect her ‘africanity.’ Copying and applying directly what is brought from foreign lands will not be effective for the target expectations.
Since higher education is considered the final step in a formal academic setting prior to entering the workforce of any economy, harmonising the higher education system assumes a critical role in ensuring that nations develop the skills needed to partake in its own development. Hence, the curriculum in higher institutions should be determined according to perceived necessities or benefits of an economic or social nature, accordingly, the curriculum in universities should be designed in terms of its purpose and function in the society. Though higher education system varies from country to country because of their history, liberation struggles, orientation and socioeconomic status, African countries still share the same problems. Considering therefore the courses to harmonise, we would suggest that courses should lead to practical objectives and go beyond mere theories without any material for practical. To top the list of courses to be studied are: (i) Agricultural Sciences: Agriculture has ever existed in Africa since time immemorial. Studying it with highly developed farming techniques will not only be beneficial to students but also to the continent at large. It is a course, if taught with the required technology, will lift African countries from poverty, eradicate famine and boost the economy. Mechanised farming should be encouraged to boost the exportation of products. Almost all Universities in Nigeria have Faculties of Agricultural Science that offer numerous undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. At the University of Ilorin, for example, there are programmes such as Animal Science, Soil Science, Agriculture Economics, Aquaculture and Fisheries, Food Science, Forestry and Wildlife, etc. The continent is blessed with a lot of natural resources with great potential for massive profitability, if well exploited. (ii) Education: Education is the best subject to study anywhere in the world. Access to education fosters growth, reduces poverty and boosts posterity. It is beneficial not just to an individual but also to society as a whole, as it encompasses all disciplines in the sphere of life. (iii) Health: The improvement and maintenance of health for Africans is of high importance for the survival of the continent. No achievement can be attained without sound health. Courses in Health Care are offered in various institutions of learning in Africa. However, its teaching has to be reinforced with adequate facilities to sustain and improve it. Some of the courses are Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Nursing, Nutrition, etc. (iv) Transportation: Transport Management is the study of the processes and systems used to safely deliver passengers and goods from one location to another. Courses in transportation encompass road, maritime, aviation, and aeronautic Engineering. The Lagos State University, in Nigeria, has a Faculty of Transportation, established to “... create an excellent modern training centre for producing highly trained manpower for the nation’s transport sector towards attaining sustainable national socio-economic development” (lasu.edu.ng).
Good transportation is another key aspect that is considered for development, and an inadequate transportation system will definitely cause slow progress in the economy and education in any country. (v) Languages: In the Humanities, African languages should be given more attention and be used to develop Science and Technology. The world superpowers like Japan, China, Germany, etc., developed their technology through their languages. Moreover, learning indigenous languages will add value to African culture. African parents pride themselves that their children do not speak their language. They prefer using the languages inherited from the colonial masters when interacting with them; that and other foreign attitudes have adverse effects on our culture. Nevertheless, English, French and other European languages can continue to be learned and continue to play their vital roles of globalisation and regionalisation as the link to other worlds since Africa cannot live in isolation. (vi) History should be taught by Africans themselves. It teaches morals, values and promotes national and international identity and even national loyalty through the teaching of lessons of individual and collective success.
6. Recommendations
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Government intervention: African leaders should be independent of their formal colonial masters in policy making. By so doing, African stakeholders in education should come together and take the bull by the horns to identify the African problems that are infringing on their development so as to come up with courses that reflect the African realities in terms of technology innovation.
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Adequate funding: African leaders should take education seriously by investing in it appropriately. Enabling facilities should also be put in place to motivate innovation and creativity geared towards uplifting the African life. Local materials should be promoted in advancing technology.
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Employability: Employability of graduates should be enhanced to fight against brain drain. Courses that are relevant to the upliftment of the socio-economic and cultural development of the continent should be introduced, and most importantly, lecturers’ emoluments should be boosted for improvement in quality education.
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Networking and collaboration: The Government should promote education networking in various levels of educational institutions, enhance students’ support and exchanges, and establish professional interactions, including creating research clusters among AAU member institutions of higher learning. Universities should strengthen collaboration with other regional and international organisations to enhance quality education in Africa. A strong collaboration and partnership between industry and academic institutions of higher learning is also imperative to address the multiple challenges confronting higher education in Africa.
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Development of the mother tongue: The development of African languages for the purpose of self-identification and technology advancement is very crucial. We observed that no country can develop tangibly in another person’s language. This is because all the so-called superpower nations of today developed their technology through the development of their mother tongue.
7. Conclusion
As it has been so far revealed, there have been various reforms in higher education in African institutions, but they have always been directly or indirectly influenced by the European Union, which is also the major sponsor and technical partner in the development and implementation of higher education harmonisation in Africa. No wonder our universities still instruct using the European models that have no connection with African cultural practices. This is further perpetuated with the use of European and American imported textbooks and equipment that are difficult to maintain because they are alien to our society. Former colonies should allow the African continent to grow and be self-reliant. Europe’s ‘big brother’ role to Africa by pretending to help is still another way of syphoning the African continent’s wealth.
Development is a gradual process. Europe was poor but it developed gradually using African mineral resources. It is said that ‘Rome was not built in a day’: neither was China nor Japan. So, it is believed that if Africa was left on its own like other continents, she would have developed steadily. African leaders should stop looking up to their former colonial masters to take decisions. It will only take a good will and determination on the part of our leaders to develop Africa. Thus, a well-designed curriculum that will help students embrace their cultural identity, refine their personal values and make them strong global citizens should be put in place. It is high time African courses in higher education take the students’ communities as well as their backgrounds into consideration when building their curriculum, i.e., the local content should be emphasised when developing their curriculum. More importantly, decisions taken at every education summit should be taken seriously and properly implemented, and not be subjected to a mere lip service.
