THE MYTH OF PRACTICALITY

By Brian Nzomo.

It is not uncommon to hear Kenyans complain about the vanity of the current education system. Infact, this elegy is crooned in many countries now, all over the world. According to self-appointed educational pundits, education should be principally relevant and pragmatic to the society it exists in. In short, it should reflect the set goals and aspirations a given society intends to achieve in a specified stretch of time. For instance, a society could imagine itself being food-sufficient and secure in ten years to come. It is argued that the existing educations should aim at imparting the practical knowledge that exists in food production, to prepare the population for that goal. That would therefore mean discarding all elements of Universalist education deemed unimportant in solving these particular, unique problems.

African literature, social science, science, art and philosophy will have to be reimagined in a way that only aims at enabling a society achieve set goals. It is what Oladipo(2000) calls “normative issues”, shifting away from the metaphilosophical preoccupations. The African philosopher according to Oladipo, should direct his thinking into solving three basic African problems confronting us:

1. Cultural identity: How can we achieve human progress without compromising our identity.
2. How to acquire and apply scientific knowledge to promote human well-being
3. Maintaining social orders within which Africans can exercise their rights while achieving their genuine human potentials.

Any conscious African will definitely realize the importance of solving these issues. Concern exists that probably African philosophy and education is scanty right now, incapable of dealing with these glaring riddles. However, who decides what aspect of universal education is relevant? How do we attribute relevance to a certain branch of knowledge and draw it away from another? Isn’t this stifling the vast potential of education? Bello(2004) calls it “a straitjacket for philosophers”. He ultimately says, It is wrong for anyone to prescribe to another how to think or what to think.

Like the particularist notions held by Oladipo, the Kenyan myth of practical education has driven us into various cadres of thinking. The government rolled out another education system that is aimed at little or no theory. Only relevance. And relevance basically means in Kenyanese, that which is current and trendy. What is in the market. And what kind of requirements do I need to get it.

I have sought to understand what Kenyans want to be included in the school system, and what they perceive as inutile. The practical things all ranged from: learning emotional intelligence, critical thinking, programming, AI, industrial competence, computers, more computers, even more computers. What do they want abolished? History, literature, arts. Especially arts. They tend to think that artistic knowledge is talent. Inborn. A waste in school. But the demon they want to kill in that system is called theory. Oh my Gaad! Kenyans abhors theories. Narratives. They are responsible for the endless notes we wrote in school.

Currently, the tertiary ground is shifting from universities to technical and vocational training centers. Kenyans want skills. Universities infuse more theory. What a waste! They want skills like carpentry, welding, building, entrepreneurship… basically knowledge that can help them attain the industrial goals GoK pouts about all day. But what we don’t know is, we are staring at a potential problem that will drown our education irretrievably.

Practical education necessarily teaches us how to do things. How to build, how to cook, how to make. Theories essentially tell us why. Why is this important. Why should it be done this way. And why is this subject different or interwoven to another. Theory is the soul of education. It is that reality that clouds our senses and helps us see possibilities. Without learning this essence, chances are you will become a mechanical skill-hand. You’ll never explore uncharted territories of your practice. And when emergent problems arise(they will always arise), you’ll be empty. Learning the soul of education helps one to augment their minds and think across unlimited spans. One is not tethered by the frugality of pragmaticism. Lack of imagination is the reason why we are unable to dissever ourselves from our miry problems. Those of the past, and of the present. And what imagination lies without understanding the ether of education.

Confining our definition of relevance to the present dag problems has two problems:

1. We are unable to see how mistakes in the past have led us into the problems we have now. And unless we switch back in time to confront the past, it will be nigh impossible to deal with the problems of now.
2. We are oblivious to the future and all the mysteries it holds. We cannot predict or forebode what would happen. Neither can we gauge the implications of what we are doing now, and how it will affect the future.

It is pertinent to deal with the present. But it is equally inane to imagine that the past and the future hold no determination to what we are doing now. Our imagination is stultified. It can only be geared towards the “now”. But when confronted by the inevitability of facing the past and the future, thinking becomes extinguished.

Finally, the myth of practicality demands that relevance be specific and particular. It erroneously concludes that every branch of knowledge requires special introspection to deal with special problems facing special people. But the world rarely works that way. Humanity’s problems may seem regionally calcified. European problems are definitely different from African problems as Asian problems. But that is a superficial outlook on problems. If one delves into the soul of these problems, they are bound to realize they are caused by the same human malaise. And this is where theory comes in. Literature is a crucial element in defining the inextricable links between these problems. Stories of Hottentots in the tawny twilight of the Kalahari desert reveal something magically human and transcendent to those of Eskimos in the unchanging greyness of Greenland.

Universal education is priceless. Learning other people and finding the human condition in them, is instrumental in imagining your way forward. Looking back in the past, learning from the problems of other peoples, and what they did to survive those quandaries; it is then you can understand this vast web that is the world, nothing is detached.

Email. bryonzoms505@gmail.com