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| Columns |
| D.D. Phiri Column |
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by
Desmond Dudwa Phiri, 10 May 2005
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11:45:50
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What is Malawi’s philosophy of education?
Education has sometimes been described broadly to mean any situation where one person imparts knowledge to another. In this essay we will confine the term education to what goes on in schools
Education in the broader sense has been around as long as mankind has existed as homo sapiens. Education in the sense of what is taught in schools was introduced into this country by missionaries from Scotland during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
The missionaries had clear aims with the education they introduced. They taught Africans to read and write in their own languages so that they could read the Bible and sing hymns. The more progressive of the missionaries went on to teach Africans English and skills like carpentry, masonry, elements of medicine to enable them find employment as clerks and vocational assistants. These missionaries appreciated the fact that as Benjamin Franklin said, it is difficult for an empty bag to stand upright. If it is true that man does not live by bread alone, it is equally true that he cannot survive on religious doctrine alone.
An American educationist John Dewey (1859-1952) said that education as such has no aims, and that it is people involved in it who have aims. There are other philosophers of education who say education, apart from the teachers and the students, has its own aims. Be this as it may, but what are the universal aims of education and of those involved in education? Moreover, what are the aims of those who build schools in Malawi?
Basically there are three aims of education and of those engaged in education. The first is to impart knowledge and understanding because these are essential values of civilised mankind. A society made up of people who are acquainted with science, technology and art is better equipped to survive in this world than a society lacking these things.
Secondly, education must be given to e person while he is still young to prepare him for self-support, survival and prosperity in future. Education imparts knowledge and knowledge is power. A knowledgeable person is not a slave of superstition. Professor Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize winner in economics has often pointed out that in the labour market high school dropout, high school graduates and college graduates are paid differently . The better educated earn more than the less educated. The more education we give to our children the better chance they will have in future to get well-paying jobs.
The third aim of education is to make it serve society, especially the nation, writing in 1926 on ‘The Aims of Education.
Britain’s most erudite philosopher of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell, had this to say about Chinese education: “It produced stability and art, it failed to produce progress or science. The traditional education of China is not suited to the modern world and has abandoned by the Chinese themselves.
“Modern Japan affords the clearest illustration of a tendency which is prominent among all the Great Powers, the tendency to make national greatness the supreme purpose of education. The aim of Japanese education is to produce citizens who shall be devoted to the state through the training of their passions, and useful to it through the knowledge they have acquired. Their success affords a justification of their methods unless we are to hold that self-preservation itself may be culpable.”
Somewhere in his autobiography Charles de Gaulle, France’s World War II hero and postwar President for ten years says that France’s ideal is greatness or words to that effect. At the end of the ‘last great war, the French introduced into their educational system a school that trained an elite of administrators who became the envy of the world and which was responsible for restoring France’s place among the comity of nations.
Time has come when we should articulate our aims of education. We cannot be sure if our educational system is effective unless first we make clear to ourselves its objectives.
For the individual, education should aim at improving his or her mind. He must understand the environment so that in whatever he does he is not a slave of ignorance and unworthy passions. Some people say ignorance is bliss, often it is not.
God created man to evolve intellectually and mentally, not to live by instinct alone. To master the environment our education system must produce persons who constantly ask: why are things like this, why and how can I make them better? The education system in other words, must produce the individual who believes in making contributions to the progress of science and art. The individual must be a nonconformist up to a point. The great civilisation of the world which we Africans are now imitations were the work of an elite of innovators: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, the list is endless.
In order to prepare our students for the life of invention and innovation we must encourage the reading of biographies in schools and training colleges. When they study electricity, let them read the biography of Thomas Alva Edison, when they study how to repair a radio let them read about Marconi; when they study literature they must find out how the author wrote his or her classic.
The aim should be to encourage the student to be an originator of ideas and works not a mere imitator. HIV and Aids and endemic famines are destroying Africa but how many Africans work twenty-four hours a day doing research that might overcome these plagues?
Secondly education must enable the individual to obtain education that will make him employable both at home and abroad. Greek and Latin classics have their uses in drilling minds but they do not interest employers who are looking for competent managers, technicians, editors of books and newspapers. Our students must master their mother languages, the lingua Franca, and those international languages which are a repository of modern discoveries of science in particular and general knowledge. English, German, French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese deserve special attention.
As a nation what would we like to be? A military power? No spit on this ambition. We should like to be a nation that enjoys high living standards. The Nordic countries testify to the fact that you can be small and yet prosperous and happy. Switzerland is a worthy role model for Malawi, as is Taiwan which has managed to succeed economically well enough to generously assist struggling countries like Malawi.
Our educational system must aim at making successful in international markets for products and services. Products are made at home, costs are recovered and profits are made in export markets. It must produce managers, engineers of international calibre.
The system must produce a good citizen. A good citizen believes not just in his freedom but the freedom of other people whether in politics or religion. Intolerance must be discouraged. The use of terms like infidel, heathen should be banned. Every effort should be made to strengthen national unity through education. Students should be encouraged to study outside their home districts and mix with those of other districts or tribes. Our educational system should make us a happy prosperous nation. |
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