Page 1 of 40 WHOSE EDUCATION IS IT? THE EXCLUSION OF AFRICAN VALUES FROM HIGHER EDUCATION Muwanga-Zake, Johnnie Wycliffe Frank zake@umu.ac.ug ABSTRACT Several factors account for the absence of African values in the curricula of Higher Education (HE). Major factors include incapacity to add values to epistemological and ontological frameworks that have mostly been imported into HE. It is the same frameworks that provide employment around which education systems in Africa are designed, mainly to serve the interests and needs of the employers who are ultimately foreign. The frameworks label African values backward and irrelevant to the employers' needs for social economic interests. Thus, a gap between the values in HE and those desirable in local African communities and environments leads to erroneous conceptions of the purposes of HE, and to graduates who hardly fit into African communities. Under- utilization of local resources and unemployment of graduates are thus expected. Africa has to derive and frame its own development for which it should design an education based on African values systems. This does not imply a complete exclusion of foreign values. A way forward is to research values and needs of local African communities and environment, so as to make HE curricula relevant and compatible with African values. Ultimately, local communities would participate in curriculum design and QA. 1. Introduction The term ‘community in this treatise implies living things whose lives are necessarily inter-linked for survival. Limited to human beings, a community is a group of people who plan, work and learn together (Community Engagement in Higher Education, 2007). A term that might be additionally relevant to this debate is ‘community engagement’, which the Community Engagement in Higher Education (2007) defines as a process of creating a shared vision among the community and partners, who include Higher Education (HE) institutions, besides others, as equal partners, that results in a long-term collaborative programme of action with outcomes that benefit the whole community equitably. Although there are examples of values being ‘brought in’ to HE by students themselves (Brennan, Little & Locke, 2006), it appears that when used in phrases like ‘community music’ or ‘community media’, the term ‘community’ signifies activities which take place outside of formal education systems and institutions. Community values in this treatise imply values excluded from formal activities of HE. Therefore, while we are born illiterate and innumerate, and ignorant of the norms and cultural achievements of the community or society into which we are born, professionals and environment socialise us into mores, norms and values desirable to the community or society. This process of socialisation – a process by which each individual imbibes social values, mores and norms, is education. Education should equip individuals with the skills and substantive knowledge that allows them to define and to pursue own goals, and also to participate in the life of their community as full- fledged, autonomous citizens (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy). Higher