A Comparative Exploration of John Dewey’s and Julius Nyerere’s Concepts of Education and African Development

Owing to the nearly tangible result in the quest toward inclusive development in Africa, there has been the clamour that perhaps the Social Sciences, charged with the responsibility of providing solace for the menace are no longer adequate. This is the axiomatic basis upon which this essay builds its argument as it aims to blaze a trail that is usually taken for granted in the discourse on development – pedagogy. Hence, via the methods of comparison and analysis, this essay discloses the nexus between John Dewey’s reconstructionism and Julius Nyerere’s educational model of self-reliance as a basis to structure development from the arena of education. For Dewey, through education, society can develop and reform its purposes and can move in different directions. For Nyerere, education for self-reliance has to foster communal goals of living together and working together for the common good. Both Dewey and Nyerere stated that education should make the individual realize that he is a member of the society and learn to participate in social learning. A critical examination of the ideas of these minds reveals that in the face of the discrepancies or differences motivations between their educational philosophies, the aggregate factor is suggestive of a worthy platform upon which a self-reliant education that will usher in the era of social development may be erected. This study admits the undeniable Western presence and the indigenous approach which makes it to initiate a blend of them. The parenthood can serve as a platform that will nurture minds that will consequently inform national development, also ideology plays a very crucial role. The present educational system of contemporary Africa has waned consequent to the circumvention of proper assessment of knowledge. The educational framework is therefore the onus and recommendation of this intellectual inquiry.


Introduction
The essence of this study is to engage the question of African development from the arena of pedagogy. This is becoming pertinent owing to the spate of state failure, moral debauchery, lack of patriotism that have greeted almost all parts of Africa has reached an alarming or disturbing level. This concern puts the philosophers of education to task, to proffer a solution that is not only commonsense but very practical. One of the ways of responding to this quagmire, which this study finds deficient, is the emphasis on Western education models. The proponents of this outlook are confident that most of the problems wrong with the present state of morality and educational theories in Africa is due to the affinity with the glorious past. On the other hand, there are those who point to indigenous education models as the viable framework that will allow the proper human development that will in turn benefit the society at large. The outlook is premised on the fact that undue accentuated and widespread trust has been given to Western ideals when it should be totally replaced with indigenous models. This study admits the undeniable Western presence and the indigenous approach which makes it to initiate a blend. In addition, we live in a globalized and multicultural setting wherein identities and backgrounds are gradually phasing into a cosmopolitan affair. It is important to be open to new ideas and positions. This is the case since multiculturalism entails acknowledging the validity of the cultural expressions and contributions of the various groups (Rosado, 1996: 4). It is for this reason that this paper proposes the urgency of a blend.
Via the method of analysis and comparative analysis, this study blends the reflections of Dewey and Nyerere to initiate a framework to cater for the question of development from pedagogy. In the next section, we concern with the various responses adduced hitherto to the question of African development. We shall also strive to disclose the inadequacy of these. Afterward, we shall now expose the ideals of Dewey and Nyerere before recommending how a blend of their educational reflection can initiate a pathway for development in African.

Development in Africa and the Labyrinth of Woes
The various essays, policies and theories proposed as the right patter for Africa to follow as a course toward development are too many to mention. In spite of the colossal effort and policies administered, a labyrinth of failures with nearly intangible results has been recorded. In this section, we shall examine albeit very briefly, the place of the modernization and dependency theories as instances of the labyrinth of woes connected to the project of African development.
The modernization movement of the 1950s and 1960s is an economic theory that is rooted in capitalism. The concept of modernization incorporates the full spectrum of the transition and drastic transformation that a traditional society has to undergo in order to become modern (Hussain & Tribe, 1981); (Lenin, 1964). In the words of John Matunhu (2011: 66): "Modernisation is z z Changing consumer behavior and the acceptance of social stratification; Modernists erroneously present the development theory as a dichotomous movement from an original terminal situation to an achieved situation with the help of the developed countries as Sen (1999: 1) writes: Like a towering lighthouse guiding sailors towards the coast, development stood as the idea which oriented emerging nations in their journey through post war history . . . the countries of the south proclaimed modernization as their primary aspiration after they had been freed from colonial domination.
The above idea depicts modernization as a process of change whereby external factors have an impact on the individual and on culture. In this case, modernization of a person needs to provide motivation, to go along with the changing social and economic situation. It is about the abandonment of an individual's cultural values in favour of that of the former colonisers. Put differently, the development of Africa should come after deculturalisation of the African people. Modernization of culture entails a change in the broader values, norms and attitudes of the larger contexts within which people in Africa find themselves (Matunhu, 2011: 69).
The theory is criticized for failing to consider the poor as the centerpiece in poverty reduction initiatives. By ignoring the involvement and participation of the target community, modernity achieves the marginalization of their commitment, creativity and support of the intervention strategies. The intervention strategy becomes an imposed strategy and such a strategy fails to construct adequate notions of both the causal powers of social structures and the role of human agency in shaping social relations in general.
Discontentment with the modernization theory in the 1950s precipitated new strands of thinking which resulted in the dependency theory. The theory came as a critical reaction to the conventional approaches to economic development that emerged in the aftermath of World War II. Andre Gunder Frank (1967: 89), in his analysis of the post-colonial state, has argued that classical development theories such as modernity are misleading in that they fail to articulate the true relationship between the developed world and the poor regions of the world. For Frank, modernity distorts the truth about the motive of the developed countries on their former colonies. Accordingly, Reid (1995: 47-8) reports: The hope that faster economic growth 'modernisation' in developing countries by itself would benefit the broad masses of poor people has not been fulfilled and no concept of development can be accepted which continues to condemn hundreds of millions of people to starvation and despair. The above view gave impetus to the dependency theory.
Social anthropologists consider the dependency theory to be both pessimistic and structural. At macro level, the main premise of the structural dependency theory is that it would be impossible to understand the processes and problems of Africa without considering the wider socio-historical context of Western European expansion (industrial and mercantile capitalism) and the colonization of these places by the Western economies (Frank, 1967: 89). According to Rodney, colonialism was not merely a system of exploitation, but one whose essential purpose was to repatriate the profits made in Africa to the so called home land (Rodney, 1971: ix).
From a dependency perspective repatriation of profits represents a systematic expatriation of the surplus values that was created by African labour using African resources. Hence the development of Europe can be viewed as part of the same dialectical processes that underdeveloped Africa. In other words, the domination of Europe over Africa retarded the economic development of the continent. For five running centuries, Europe capitalized on its encounter with Africa (Matunhu, 2011: 71).
The critiques of the dependency theory view Africa in general and the rural areas in particular as having been strategically positioned by the centre as recipients of poor services as well as ill-advice from the metropolis.
According to Rodney from the last years of the nineteenth century, up to the 1960s, Africa was the major supplier of underpriced raw materials to Europe and buyer of overpriced manufactured goods from the West (Rodney, 1971: 129). At national level, the metropolis areas (urban) grew at the expense of rural communities. At continental level one may be interested in finding out why Zambia, Angola, Botswana, Nigeria, the DRC, Libya and many more nations in Africa are poor given their richness in natural resources. Seemingly, the impoverishing dependency relationship is maintained through the promulgation of development initiatives that are deeply alien but chanted as in the interest of Africa. The dependency theory operates both in sovereign and colonial states. The only difference is that in the later, the theory was applied with harsh measures than one expects in the former state. It is also necessary to point out that due to corruption and bad governance, the dependency theory may be applied ruthlessly even in a sovereign state. The consequence has not changed. The spate of the labyrinth of woes continues to multiply in Africa in connection to the development discourse. At this juncture, it is not misplaced to pose thus: Is it possible to propose an education model from the conjunction of Western and African realities? Since this essay has already implied this it therefore begs the next question. How can John Dewey's Western thought on education assist modern education in Nigeria? Is there any parallel between Dewey's theory and Julius Nyerere's educational philosophy? Can Dewey's pragmatism and Nyerere's self-reliance perspectives be harnessed for the emergence of a modern education theory for Nigeria? These are the questions that we contend with for the remainder of this study.

Dewey's and Nyerere's Models of Education as a Viable Basis for Development in Africa
In his book My Pedagogic Creed, published in 1897, Dewey stated many of his beliefs about education, schools, subject matter, and educational methods, and argued for the school's importance as an impetus for social progress. In this work, Dewey maintains that: The only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself...
he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity...and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs (Dewey, 1997: 3).
Throughout the work, Dewey emphasized that humans are primarily social creatures and that schools are social institutions. He argued that schools must represent real life and "education which does not occur through forms of life, forms that are worth living for their own sake, is always a poor substitute for the genuine reality, and tends to cramp and deaden" (Dewey, 2000: 95).
The curriculum of the schools should he grounded and based upon the social lives of the children: "The social life of the child is the basis of concentration ... in all his training or growth ... the true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history ... but the child's own social activities" (Dewey, 2000: 96). When the curriculum does not relate to the students' lives within their communities and when it is not tied to the present social situations of the students, Dewey contended that education has failed. Speaking of education, Dewey (2000: 95) explains: It conceives school as a place where certain information is to be given, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits are to be formed. The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote future; the child must do these things for the sake of something else he is to do; they are mere preparations. As a result they do not become part of the life experience of the child and so are not truly educative.
Dewey stated explicitly that the teacher's role is not to impose ideas or habits; instead the teacher is "a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences" (Dewey, 2000: 96). Examinations, according to Dewey, are only useful if they show how the child can be of service, and where he can receive help. One of Dewey's (2000: 99) most fundamental tenets is stated clearly in My Pedagogic Creed: "Education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform." Through education, society can develop and reform its purposes and can move in different directions. Great responsibility is thus placed in the hands of schools and teachers for reshaping and restructuring society: "The teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life" (Dewey, 2000: 100). Dewey (2000: 100) emphasizes the key impact of teachers: "Every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth" (Dewey, 2000: 100).
Unlike other members of the reconstructionist tradition, Dewey went ahead to give insights into the task of the teacher. Specifically, in The School and the Society, expatiates that: The thing needful is improvement of education, not simply by turning out teachers who can do better the things that are not necessary to do, but rather by changing the conception of what constitutes education (Dewey, 1900: 18).
Upon a reading of Nyerere, we find a similar thematic contention present throughout his reflection on education. According to Nyerere the colonial education system separated students from their society thus creating a serious gap in their understanding of their own communities (Nyerere, 1968: 55). For instance, at the secondary school level most students were boarders and thus were separated from the struggles of their society for a long period of time (Nyerere, 1968: 55). In his view the inherited system had generated the notion that a school was "a place children go and which they and their parents hope will make it unnecessary for them to become farmers and continue living in the Villages" (Nyerere, 1968: 55). For Nyerere such an approach to education was out of place in a country where the majority of the population lived in the rural areas and was dependent on agrarian production (Shale, 2002: 90). In other words, colonial education was based on the assumptions of a colonialist and capitalist society, and was therefore designed to transmit the values of the colonizing power and to train individuals for the service of the colonial state. It induced attitudes of subservience, human inequality, and individualism, and emphasized white-collar skills. The content of colonial education was largely alien and the entire education system was organized by racial segregation (Kassam, 1994: 247-259).
Nyerere analyzed four basic features of the Tanzanian education system existing in 1967. He was particularly concerned about how it discouraged the integration of pupils into society as a whole and promoted attitudes of inequality, intellectual arrogance, and individualism among those who entered the school system.
According to Nyerere, the education that Tanzania inherited was "a system of education which was in many respects both inadequate and inappropriate for the new state." (Nyerere 1968:38). To come out of the mess, Nyerere suggested a solution. The solution was in the philosophy of education he proposed, which was an answer to the question posed earlier: "Education for what?". Education for self-reliance was the philosophy whose purpose was to foster communal goals of living together and working together for the common good.
Thus, within the first five years of independence the contradictions of the inherited Postcolonial political economic structure and Nyerere's commitment to the reorientation of the country's development path along what he termed "African socialism" saw him calling for radical changes in the education system. The central tenets of Nyerere's perspective on the role of education in the development process were contained in a 1967 policy booklet titled Education for Self-Reliance (Nyerere 1968: 47). Education for Self-Reliance was the most important educational principle, which presented the educational philosophy of Tanzania. The purpose of Education for Self-Reliance was to set down principles of education, which would serve as a revolutionary influence in the creation of the new social society. Education for Self-Reliance is about gaining self-independence, responsibility and democratic involvement; it is education, which is meant to liberate individual from over-reliance (Sanga, 2016: 38).
Nyerere believed that the purpose of education should be to liberate a human-being (Mulenga, 2001: 446). He concurred with Paulo Freire's idea that education is a path to permanent liberation and it should make people self-reliant. According to Freire (1972: 67) "liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information". Education should help people to recognize their oppression and then participate in its transformation.
For Nyerere, self-reliance education would ensure that the Tanzanian child was educated to be self-dependent and make a living in the Tanzanian community. Thus, Nyerere (1968: 23), conceives the goals of education as: To transmit from one generation to the next the accumulated wisdom, knowledge, skills, values and attitudes of the society…to enable the young live in and serve the society and to prepare them for the future membership of the society…it involves the active participation of the maintenance and development of the society.
To achieve this, Nyerere proposed a change in school curricula and in the way schools were run. He insisted that schools must become communities -communities which practice the precepts of self-reliance. There must be the same kind of relationship between pupils and teachers within the school community as there is between children and parents. Each school would have, as an integral part of it, a farm or workshop which would provide the food eaten by the community, and make some contributions to the total national income (Akinsanya, 2015: 114-115). Every school would also be a farm -the school community would consist of people who were both teachers and farmers, and pupils and farmers. Schools would also train the child to prepare his food, wash his plates, clean his rooms and other chores, and most importantly, make graduates to fit into and serve the communities from which they come.
We have already given comprehensive analysis of the educational philosophies of Dewey and Nyerere respectively. What is unique about each of them? What aspect of their thoughts is applicable to lift Africa? These are the questions that we seek to examine within the present section.

One of the places of connection between the ideas of John Dewey and Julius
Nyerere is the intersection of the Reconstructionist theory of education. The reconstructionist recognize that the society is already been destroyed and disoriented, disorganized and hence it needs to be re-shaped and re-created in a new society through social self-realization by education, that is education should make the individual realize that he is a member of the society and learn to participate in social learning.
The brief recapitulation of the main thrust of social reconstructionism shows that there is something synonymous between Nyerere and Dewey.
Nyerere was concerned about life after political independence in Africa. He finds the Western system inadequate and incompetent to handle the existential realities of the African community. Nyerere thereby situates within the African dimension of reconstructing society. He seeks an improved status quo from traditional African beliefs as opposed to Western beliefs which we think is unsuitable for African living. Nyerere however got it wrong here because he "…completely rejected…" (Falola, 2018: 18) the undeniable Western presence. Perhaps this may be one of the contributing factors to the collapse of his system, the previous section has already made the effort to show that Nyerere's practice of his ideals met gridlocks and then a failure in the end.
Dewey, no doubt is an American who seeks an improved way of learning in the American educational sector. His aim is to tailor what is being learned in the classroom to what happens in society. In his book My Pedagogic Creed, published in 1897, Dewey stated many of his beliefs about education, schools, subject matter, and educational methods, and argued for the school's importance as an impetus for social progress. In this work, Dewey (2000: 93) maintains that: The only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself... he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity...and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs.
Throughout the work, Dewey emphasized that humans are primarily social creatures and that schools are social institutions. He argued that schools must represent real life and "education which does not occur through forms of life, forms that are worth living for their own sake, is always a poor substitute for the genuine reality, and tends to cramp and deaden" (Dewey, 2000: 95).
The curriculum of the schools should he grounded and based upon the social lives of the children: "The social life of the child is the basis of concentration ... in all his training or growth ... the true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history ... but the child's own social activities" (Dewey, 2000: 96). When the curriculum does not relate to the students' lives within their communities and when it is not tied to the present social situations of the students, Dewey contended that education has failed. Speaking of education, Dewey (2000: 95) explains: It conceives school as a place where certain information is to be given, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits are to be formed. The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote future; the child must do these things for the sake of something else he is to do; they are mere preparations. As a result they do not become part of the life experience of the child and so are not truly educative.
The foregoing is meant to show that both Dewey and Nyerere are committed to showing mainly how education can evolve into a catalyst for social progress. Whereas Dewey is writing from the tradition of American Philosophy for the promotion of American education, Nyerere, though educated in Europe seeks to revive the African glorious past as the surest path to combat the evils of capitalism and the intimidating Western presence. In spite of this core parallel, there are places of radical departures between them.
Granted that each of Dewey and Nyerere are committed towards the use of education as the vehicle for social change, it is important to stress again that their ideas are pregnant with great input for the African situation.
For Africa to thrive, it is from the urgent revival of development from the educational sector. Education as a tool for social change cannot be overemphasized at this juncture because it serves as the foundation for the learning of any individual. While exposing the inherent aim of education, Azenabor (2005: 1), champions the perspective that: It is the most powerful and viable instrument for developing and empowering the citizens to master the social and natural environments and to compete for survival. A nation's strength largely lies in the quantity and quality of her human resources; education is the pivot on which development rotates and a fundamental capacity building measure for sustainable development.
The kind of education that one is given from childhood has a big role to play in the kind of life the person will lead. In the wake of the call for education, we cannot wish away the aspect of making the people see how indigenous epistemologies can be very useful. Though the indigenous perspective is the one explored by Nyerere, we think that his failure stems from the refusal to admit and acknowledge the already established fact of the Western presence. This essay overcomes this deluge of conundrum by admitting the Western presence through the conjunction of the work of Dewey with Nyerere's.
For a continent that has failed itself over the decades, development is not something to be negotiated. Since there must have been some form of informal education in Africa before foreign contacts, the aim of this Nyerere is to revisit some of these, critically assess them to unearth their contemporary relevance for development. This is keeping in line with the admonition of philosopher Pauline Hountondji who perceives "knowledge as a development issue" (Hountodji, 2004: 529).
Since knowledge is a development issue, it is the research paper here that formal education which exists must be maintained. Children must be taught not only about Western ideas but also about traditional ideas with the capacity to transform society. Learning must no longer be learning for leaning's sake. The kind of curriculum that will be drawn for pupils in Northern Nigeria for instance, need not be the same as those for the South. This is because these geographies experience and conceive reality difference, hence, their needs and world-views too.
What we can deduce from Dewey and Nyerere is that education must be child-focused such that the child is inspired to transform society positively. In this way, the children are thought moral values of tolerance and hard work. There are arrays of ways that this can be done. Indigenous epistemologies have the capacity to be able to foster the kind of education for development that Dewey and Nyerere anticipate.

Recommendation
Firstly, the emphasis that traditional African folklores and beliefs are barbaric and demonic needs to be revised. There is no conclusive argument to that effect. Christianity and Islam have merely used this as a formula to gain increased membership. It is pertinent for government to employ states like Japan, China, India, Korea who stuck to the indigenous languages, traditions and customs as models vis-à-vis the Western blueprint which is now rampant. India is known for medicine. China, Japan and Korea are known for technology. A critical look at these nations reveals that they keep to their roots. Government must be able to publicize the proposed gains from employing the positive aspect of the African roots pregnant with philosophic values that may inform human development. Fortunately, there is no parent whose intention is train children that will bring calamity to family and state. Hence, the spate or torrent of children disrespecting their parents in the name of having rights and priviledge have rendered almost useless the influence of parents. When government sensitize parents the need to teach folklore to nurture human development, it must also make parent see that the job of raising children is not limited to the domestic sphere alone. Balogun (2013: 41), is assured that "many of the causes of the problems of social degeneration and decay could be avoided if there are good fatherhood and motherhood in place to nurture, protect and guide the child for moral goodness and positive greatness." He continues that "good motherhood and fatherhood produce politically balanced candidates of good leadership qualities in politics. In a state where there is a strong consciousness towards authentic motherhood and fatherhood in nurturing leadership qualities of citizens, there is always a visible presence of political development." Balogun (2013: 41) insists that "the more the number of these nurtured citizens the better the economy of the state." Again, the implication to be drawn is that if properly given the right attention and devotion, parenthood can serve as a platform that will nurture minds that will consequently inform national development. However, it is important to stress that between positive parenthood and the emergence of the nurtured minds that will effect social upliftment, ideology plays a very crucial role. It is not enough for parents to just impart positive values.