Immediate past Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Professor Dora Francisca Edu-Buandoh says colonialism has had a diverse impact on the African Continent, especially the educational system.
She said often complaints of the education system in the country not giving liberation from the colonization still lingers as many still want to speak and behave the way we were taught to be during the colonial era.
Speaking at the opening of a 3-day conference by the West African Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (WAACLALS) in collaboration with the School of Educational Development and Outreach (SEDO)-College of Education Studies, UCC, she said “our education, our languages, our religions, our total way of life are assigned critical values by the colonizer”.
West African Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (WAACLALS) is the regional branch of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS).
WAACLALS encourages research and scholarship across disciplines in the commonwealth, transatlantic and postcolonial studies.
On his part, Chair and Convener of WAACLALS, Prof. Marcel Okhakhu stressed that Media and Journalism practices in Africa have continuously depended on Western practices which seek to promote western cultures and ideologies to the detriment of African norms, cultures, and the economy.
This, he said, renders Africans the inability to become creative “in our own senses such that we can now have what may be referred to as authentically African.”
“Is it indeed true that everything African is voodoo? Can that actually be our true identity? And the use of media outlets as economic agents,” he questioned.
Conference Theme
The conference, which seeks to explain Postcolonial Africa’s advancement or retardation after over six decades of Postcolonial dis/engagements is under the theme- Reflections of Post Coloniality in Education, Literature, Media and Communication Discourse.
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Source: Eric Sekyi/ATLFMNEWS
