Community and belonging to a community are essential elements of traditional African life (Venter 2004). African community is a vast, ever-expanding network of spiritual, psychological, biological and emotional relations (Higgs and Smith, 2000) based on interdependence, communalism, sensitivity and caring for others (Le Roux, 2000). But under the influence of dominant western epistemology, most accounts of African cultures and experiences, including the ways ordinary people situate themselves in relation to others, have often been sidelined (Nyamnjoh 2001). They are discussed by only a few scholars, particularly Africans, attempting to enable “African studies to graduate from scholarship by analogy to scholarship informed by African worldviews and historical process” (Mandani 1996) and in order to provide new insight into western dominated discussions.
In the field of African education studies, community ties and collectiveness can be seen as important terms in the Citizenship Education discourse (Tsukuda 2017). Citizenship has become a major interest among education thinkers worldwide (Cidree, 2005), with many countries working on this in relation to their national curricula. This is true too of certain African countries, many of which face issues of democratization and nation building. In this emergent field of research, African scholars are beginning to challenge the prevailing (western) theories of citizenship by focusing on the role of community and primordial ties (Wainaina Arnot, and Chege 2011, Avoseh 2001, Ndegwa 1997).
Examining education specifically in Tanzania through the lenses of community and citizenship may provide new perspectives in the discussion of citizenship education in that nation. In Tanzania, Ujamaa, a Kiswahili word meaning family-hood, has been considered as a core philosophical term in nation building, politics, and education since the country’s independence (Nyerere 1969a, 1969b, 1968c). Yet, analyses of Tanzanian education policies are often based on neo-liberal thinking, thus emphasizing cost, efficiency and effectiveness, quality, equity, and relevance (Mkumbo 2017, Wakibe 2015, Samoff 1994). My research aims to analyze how African communities and its citizenship have been described and discussed in the formation of Tanzanian education in this context.
This study is based on qualitative analysis of key policy documents, complemented by investigation of surrounding social and political conditions. It examines the main policy documents considered to have played a significant role in education planning in Tanzania, dividing the modern history into three periods. The first is that of British Administration when documents such as the Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (1925) and Education for Citizenship in Africa (1948) were published. The second period is that following independence when Nyerere’s African Socialism and the Education for Self Reliance (1967) became influential. The last period is that from the structural adjustment plan to the present, including the Education and Training Policy (1995) and Education and Training Policy (2014). Education policies are examined through several aspects related to citizenship, including rights and responsibilities, participation, and identity.
This research will suggest that notions of community-based citizenship have been operating in some form throughout the history of education policy development in Tanzania (at one time Tanganyika) without being overtly acknowledged as such. Moreover, it suggests that they have been adjusted, reproduced and used intentionally in accordance with changing actors, initiatives and social conditions in policy development. Under the indirect rule of British administration, when citizenship came into the discussion of education for the first time in Tanganyika, “local community needs” and “African context” were mentioned, but with special emphasis given to responsibility and obedience to a community. Education for native Africans aimed to generate feelings of submissiveness, passivity and inferiority towards the white settlers. Later, in the time of Nyerere’s African Socialism, African communities were given even more attention and became their core philosophy, so called Ujamaa. A common image of “African community” was used to generate nationalism in the newly born nation despite its diversity. Since the Structural Adjustment Plan, and due to lack of finance, collective citizenship in the community has been used to sustain the provision of formal education in a form of cost sharing through community contributions.
This research attempts to demonstrate that African conceptions of community and its citizenship have had a role in each education policy in various forms and have been seen or even been used in favor of succeeding policy makers. These findings may contribute to further important discussions on how different actors perceive African communities and how those differences may affect education planning and practice in Tanzania specifically.