African Academic Leadership Development Academy
"Our educational system has to foster the social goals of living together, for the common good. It has to prepare our young people to play a dynamic and constructive part in the development of a society in which all members share in the good or bad fortune of a group, and in which progress is measured in terms of well-being, not prestige builders, cars or other such things, whether privately or publicly-owned. Our education must therefore inculcate a sense of commitment to the total community, and help the pupils to accept the values appropriate to our kind of future, not those appropriate to our colonial past." (Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania, Africa)
Africentric education is defined as the means by which African culture including the knowledge, attitudes, values and skills needed to maintain and perpetuate it throughout the nationbuilding process -- is developed and advanced through practices. Its aim, therefore, is to build commitment and competency within present and future generations to support the struggle for liberation and nationhood. We define nationbuilding as the conscious and focused application of our people's collective resources, energies, and knowledge to the task of liberating and developing the psychic and physical space that we identify as ours. Nationbuilding encompasses both the reconstruction of African culture and the development of a progressive and sovereign state structure consistent with that culture.
knowledge
Knowledge includes acknowledging African spirituality as a essential aspect of our uniqueness as a people and makes it an instrument of our liberation. This knowledge focuses on the "knowledge and history of historical truths; through comparison; hypothesizing and testing through debate, trial, and application; through analysis and synthesis; through creative and critical thinking; through problem resolution processes; and through final evaluation and decision making."
attitudes
This attitude emphasizes that African identity is embedded in the continuity of African cultural history and the African cultural history represents a distinct reality continually evolving from the experiences of all African people wherever they are and have been on the planet across time and generations. It embraces the traditional wisdom that "children are the reward of life" and it is, therefore, an expression of our unconditional love for them. In order to best serve African children our methods must reflect the best understandings that we have of how they develop and learn biologically, spiritually and culturally.
values
These ensure that the historic role and function of the customs, traditions, rituals and ceremonies -- that have protected and preserved our culture; facilitated our spiritual expression; ensured harmony in our social relations; prepared our people to meet their responsibilities as adult member of our culture; and sustained the continuity of African life over successive generation -- are understood and made relevant to the challenges that confront us in our time.
skills
African centered education can only be systematically facilitated by people who themselves are consciously engaged in the process of African center personal transformation. African centered education is a process dependent upon human perception and interpretation (Thus, it follows that a curriculum cannot be African centered independent of our capacity to perceive and interpret it in an African centered manner).
nationbuilding
African centered education facilitates participation in the affairs of nations and defining (or redefining) reality on our own terms, in our own time and in our own interests. This prepares Africans "for self-reliance, nation maintenance, and nation management in ever regard." African centered education emphasizes the fundamental relationship between the strength of our families and the strength of our nation.
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Revised January 28, 1997