Int Rev Educ (2014) 60:145–147 DOI 10.1007/s11159-013-9376-y BOOK REVIEW

Education, democracy and development – does education contribute to democratisation in developing countries? By Clive Harber and Vusi Mncube. Symposium Books, Oxford. 2012, 189 pp. ISBN 978-1-873927-71-7 (pbk) Birgit Brock-Utne

Published online: 18 September 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning 2013

This book is divided into six chapters, five more general chapters on education, democracy and development and one chapter (chapter 5) focusing especially on South Africa, a country both of the authors know well. Vusi Mncube, himself a South African, is Associate Professor at UNISA (University of South Africa) in Pretoria. His main research interests concern education for and in democracy. Clive Harber, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK, is an Honorary Professor of UNISA. From 1995 to 1999 he worked at the University of Natal in South Africa. He has written extensively on education and democracy. The authors have written several papers together. They both feel that education in South Africa is a microcosm of many of the tensions and contradictions inherent in the relationship between education, democracy and development that are described and analysed in more general terms in the rest of the book. Education is often seen as the key agency in international development and poverty reduction. Quantitative measures are frequently given when it comes to assessing how far we are from the international target of ‘‘Education for All’’. How many children are in school, out of school, drop out? How many boys and how many girls? How do they do in exams and in international assessments? The authors of this book want to probe further and look at what really happens in classrooms in developing countries, in ‘‘the black box’’ as they term it. This is a worthwhile endeavour. There has been and is too much mindless data gathering, too little focus on the real problems in school. The authors aim to critically explore the contradictory role of formal education in both supporting and hindering democratic political development. Harber and Mncube find that some newly elected regimes in Africa have reverted back to the more established cultural patterns of authoritarianism. They discover that what students are supposed to learn about democratic institutions and B. Brock-Utne (&) Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

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behaviour in schools is often contradicted by their daily experience in wider society. They also mention that in Cambodia, a cultural preference for social harmony, conformity and passivity partly influenced by a particular interpretation of Buddhism has proved to be a considerable obstacle to the introduction of civic and moral education in schools, which is designed to teach students about concepts such as democracy, elections, human rights and freedom and to promote active citizenship. In one developing country after the other the authors find that what the Brazilian educationist and philosopher Paulo Freire called the ‘‘banking’’ concept of education is the most common teaching method. Whether in China, in the Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Papa New Guinea, India or in Pakistan – teaching tends to be heavily teacher-centred. The schooling which Harber and Mncube analyse is characterised by transmission of information by the teacher to the student. There is a focus on exam performance. Referring to Pakistan, they remark: ‘‘Teachers, relying on the textbook, normally give lecture notes to students who are expected to memorise them with little or no attention given to understanding the content’’ (p. 117). In Mozambique one study ranked different pupil activities by the amount of time pupils spend on them. Ranked first was listening to teachers. Second in importance was waiting and the third most common activity was copying. The dominant classroom interaction pattern seems to be that of overwhelmingly passive pupils whose activities are limited to being almost entirely reproductive in nature. The authors discuss the similarities among schools all over the world. Though Ethiopia was never colonised, it still has the same type of schools as the West. They are simply poorer. There is nothing in the prevailing epistemology of the Ethiopian school system that is truly Ethiopian. Everywhere the authors look they find – – – – –

an authoritarian relationship which lies at the core of the teacher–learner interaction; teachers who are generally insecure because of lack of training and poor remuneration; teachers who generally discourage discussion and questioning and adhere to textbooks; a principal function of schooling being to select entrants to the next educational level; and a selection based on a highly competitive examination system which requires the reproduction of rote learning rather than critical thought and thinking in African classrooms.

It is difficult to teach democracy or educate for democracy when schooling is organised according to the above principles. The authors claim that the present system of education in South Africa requires learners to be active participants so that they can raise their concerns/views/opinions coming up with new ideas. But how easy is it to be critical, voice opinions and argue in a language one does not master? This is the most important educational question in Africa, including South Africa where the majority of the population speak a language which is not used as a language of instruction in school. This very important question which

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certainly is decisive when it comes to teaching democracy and critical thinking is not touched at all. This is a serious flaw in an otherwise very interesting book well worth reading.

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