Education as an Instrument of Nation‐Building in Postcolonial Africa

Abstract

Abstract The article examines the role of education in nation‐building in postcolonial Africa. The postcolonial African nationalist leaders faced formidable challenges in building new nations out of disparate ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic groups, particularly as regards the two intimately related processes of deconstruction and construction. While deconstruction entailed dismantling the structures, institutions, and power relations of the colonial period, construction entailed replacing them with relevant national institutions, structures, authorities, and mechanisms. Education was to advance the process of construction and transformation as a pedagogical instrument for cultivating a national identity by fostering integration and cohesion. One of the nationalist leaders’ biggest mistakes, however, was to adopt a homogenizing strategy of nation‐building. The paper subscribes to the conception of heterogeneity as a nation‐building strategy, where ethnic and civic (sub‐national and national) layers constitute the nation. The overall focus of the article is a conceptual and theoretical analysis of the nexus between education and nation‐building in postcolonial Africa. The central argument is that education plays a decisive role in nation‐building in Africa. Eritrea is selected as an empirical case study to advance this argument.