Minimizing indoctrination of powerless African students: Commentary on “against indoctrination: Education and the role of the intellectual” by Peter Blunt

Abstract

This article presents a commentary on the article titled, “Against Indoctrination: Education and the Role of the Intellectual”, written by Peter Blunt. The commentary suggests that Blunt is one of the most respected scholarly voices on Africa’s development, with a strong contribution to scholarly discourse on development management in Africa. The commentary agrees with Blunt that Africa and African higher education remain one of the major victims of capitalist and neo-colonial excesses. However, the commentary suggests that there are other important areas that Blunt could have expanded on to clarify ongoing efforts aimed at decolonization of knowledge and education in African universities and business schools. The commentary, therefore, discusses four strategies that may be used to speak to the powerless in Africa: creation of dialogical avenues to question capitalism and neo-colonialism; use of Afrocentric and decolonial lenses to explain phenomenon; designing of pedagogy for critical thinking under constraint; and modeling of intellectual courage and collective inquiry to generate and communicate knowledge about Africa as ways of helping minimize indoctrination of powerless African students.