Un-schooling the Postcolony: Using Development Paradigms to Underdevelop Africa

The colonial educational system was not intended to develop Nigerian children’s cultural identities. In religious texts, images of Lucifer were black, while those of Saints, Mary and Jesus were (and are still) “white†. In school books also, imageries of the Queen, London Bridge, castles, koala, reindeer, etc, were parts of the unAfrican concepts administered to children. In problematising these, this paper uses the analyses of historical narratives, social evidence, illustrations in primary and secondary school textbooks and field observations to highlight how British colonial enterprise un-schooled the colony, using un-African cultural materials that alienate Nigerian children from their own cultures.