Inadequacies of the Notion of Assimilation in African Education

Abstract

Our understanding of educational processes is often obscured by ideological considerations. This is very well illustrated in the common term, ‘assimilation’, used to characterise European colonial policy towards Africa. Thus it is often asserted that French authorities promoted the emergence of a class of ‘black Frenchmen’, with values, aspirations, and cognitive styles analogous to those of European educational institutions. In contrast, the British have been viewed as repudiating such a notion in their system of indirect rule, which attempted accommodation with Africa and aimed at perpetuating African existing social organisations.