AFRICA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM KEEPS HER IN POVERTY

MUWAGA MUSA KOFI ANNAN

ON June 3 2010, the former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan asked some pertinent
questions about Africa’s economic backwardness compared to other continents. Despite Africa’s
wealth, why are so may still trapped in poverty? Why is progress on Millennium Development
Goals so slow and uneven? Why are so many women marginalised? Why is inequality
increasing? And why is there so much insecurity?
To Annan, the answers are to be found in weak governance and insufficient investment in public
goods and services, whether citizens’ productive capacity, infrastructure, affordable energy,
health, education and agricultural productivity. But these answers beg the question for why is
there weak governance, insufficient investment and an absence of productive capacity in the
presence of wealth?
To muwaga musa, answers to these last three questions may lie in the evolvement of mankind
and his societies. Africa led the world in technological advance, agriculture, trade and state
formation during the pre-historical era but with the collapse of African empires which coincided
with the birth of the modern world view around the 12th century, Europe and Africa parted
company in terms of development.
The disparity between Africa and Europe which developed cannot be explained in terms of racial
difference. All humans belong to the family of hominids which is characterised by enlarged
brains and the ability to walk upright.
About one and a half million years ago the earliest form of hominids evolved from the African
forest apes: the gorilla and the chimpanzee. This form of hominids was named Homo habilis
(“clever” or “handy” man) because its remains were discovered with simple, manufactured tools.
The next hominid to evolve was the Homo erectus with a brain capacity of 900cc. About a
million years ago the first hominid moved out of Africa to Europe and Asia. This was followed
by the early forms of the modern man “homo sapiens” or wise man with a brain capacity of
1, 300cc to 1,400cc evolved in Africa about 200,000 and 100,000 years ago by which time all
the other hominids had become extinct.

The final evolution of modern man or homo sapien spaien with an average brain capacity of
1,450cc was complete by 40,000BC. Originating from Africa, homo sapien sapien spread to all
major regions of the world by 10,000BC. As they spread across Africa and other continents
homo sapien sapien adapted to variations in climate and environment. Those who remained in
the heart of Africa developed the dark skin to protect them from the harmful rays of the direct
tropical sun. The ones who moved to cooler climates developed paler skins in order to absorb
more of the beneficial rays of the less direct sunlight. Accordingly, the so-called racial
differences can only be explained in terms of local adaptations to climate and environment and
the distinctive cultures which developed.
With the coming of farming came new technologies which included the development of the bow
and arrow which improved hunting techniques, fine bone tools, owl needles, fish-hooks and
barbs. This was followed by more permanent settlements and with it social organisation and
planning. Around 1100BC, the local rulers of Nubia built up the first politically independent
state of Kush which gained wealth and power and in 730BC actually invaded Egypt and ruled it
for over 60 years. Kush had the advantage of a trading outlet to the Red Sea through which it
exported ivory, leopard skins, ostrich feathers, ebony and gold.
The Nubian state was emulated in West Africa where empires like Ghana, Mali and others rose
to great heights. With the fall of these empires, Africans started to migrate to new locations
where insecurity and the vicissitudes of nature forced them to develop cultures based on kinship,
attachment to the dead and the past and a vertical form of social organisation. Such cultures are
still with us and are responsible for Africa’s economic backwardness muwaga lamented.
As the African empires were collapsing around the 12th century, Europe was beginning to
experience a scholastic awakening centered on the Catholic Church. An interest in learning
focused on the reality of the natural world was taking hold and this desire for learning led to the
discovery of the ancient world’s writings and texts which had been preserved by Byzantine and
Arab scholars.
To Annan, with the receipt of the University of Paris of a charter from the Holy See in 1215, the
universities became autonomous centre’s devoted to the culture of knowledge. The scholastic
period prepared the way for the renaissance which changed Europe’s world view and with the
coming of the renaissance Western man was now capable of penetrating and reflecting on
nature’s secrets and expanding the frontiers of the unknown world.
Four discoveries changed the Western world well. These were the compass, gunpowder, the
mechanical clock and the printing press. It is at this stage that a distinctive Western personality
marked by individualism, secularism, strength of will, innovation and a willingness to defy
traditional limitations on human activity came into being. This differed with the African
personality which centered on kinship, worship of the past and the dead and a vertical social
organisation.
It is this Western personality which has enabled European societies to change qualitatively and
quantitatively every 100 years. For example, at the end of the Napoleonic wars the population
was everywhere but 100 years later farmers became the majority single group in every developed
country. By 1950, the industrial blue collar workers had become the largest single group.

Mr. Muwaga added, today, the newly emerging group is the knowledge worker groups which
require a different approach to work and a different mindset. Above all, knowledge workers
require a habit of continuous learning.
To return to the question “why amidst the wealth many Africans are still trapped in poverty” the
answer is that Africa has missed out at every epoch of social advancement in the last 500 years.
The African mindset has been steeped in past glory instead of yearning for future possibilities.
As a result, African societies, unlike their counterparts, have not developed the tools necessary to
manage the modern world.
Only those African countries which will change their societies in order to cope with the
emerging knowledge society will escape the poverty trap. This calls for a rethink of our
education system, giving primacy to our competitive position in a competitive world and
trimming the functions of the mega state which has not delivered.

CC: KOFI ANNAN