Wambui Karanja

Decoloniality and African Education: Contested Issues and Challenges is a vibrant and vital collection of essays that addresses the challenges, possibilities, and responsibilities for the future of de- and anti-colonial African educational. Decolonization has become a buzz word of late, so the term is used in this context with a certain trepidation. But the themes of this book go beyond mere rhetoric by creating specific approaches to dismantling colonial educational systems in African and to create a new environment for African education duly informed by local cultural resource knowing, known from grounded everyday practices of authentic African educators. In other words, a revision of educational practices informed by what educators know and are doing for the lessons in envisioning schooling and education in Africa. In this endeavor, while we seek lessons and partnerships with others, African educators are urged to think through solutions specific to the problems and challenges in schools today, and meet the call of our times to provide education to young learners that not only empowers them, but also provides them with background knowledge, cultural grounding, and specific lessons that will enable them to craft their own futures. So how do we “do” decolonial education from the standpoint of African educators and learners everyday schooling practice and knowledge? Decoloniality and African Education argues that a careful embrace of African Indigenous and cultural knowings determine the successful response to this question. It engages both the “decolonial” and the “anti-colonial,” with a reading that the “decolonial” (as many have pointed out, see Parry, 1994) is a process and a path toward an end, which is the goal of the “anti-colonial” (see Dei, 2022).

Decoloniality and African Education is essential reading for students and scholars committed to the improvement of educational outcomes for African American students. It’s a book that empowers educators and raises awareness about African-based teaching environments. It can be used in a variety of courses, including African Studies, African Development, Anti-Colonial Thought and Indigenous Knowledge, and the Pedagogical Implications of Decolonization.