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Inclusive education initiatives have been endorsed globally, especially by international development agencies. This study sought to get the views and experience of both in-service and trainee teachers about inclusive education and teacher training in the aftermath of the implementation of the 'new' Curriculum Framework for Primary and Secondary Education 2015–2022 in Zimbabwe. This new curriculum is said to be grounded in Unhu/Ubuntu philosophy. I use Unhu/Ubuntu philosophy as an evaluative and conceptual framework to examine inclusivity issues within the new curriculum. Drawing on a qualitative study involving content analysis, two key informant interviews and four focus group discussions on teacher education and inclusive education conducted in Manicaland province in the eastern part of Zimbabwe, findings highlight challenges faced in realising the Unhu/Ubuntu philosophical value of inclusivity in education. These impediments are unsurprisingly similar to those reported in other studies, both in Zimbabwe and in other countries. The paper identifies and highlights some of the reasons why inclusive education has remained elusive and makes some recommendations. It calls for teacher education premised on the indigenous Unhu/ Ubuntu philosophy. In doing this, the paper contributes to debates on inclusive education and discussions on decoloniality of education in postcolonial states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ubuntu philosophy and notions of otherness, this paper and refers to, but is not limited to, the South African experience. In a relatively humanising turn, Ubuntu draws our attention to wider forms of interdependence with all that surrounds us: the dead, the living and the yet unborn, the physical and social environment, what is closest to us and furthest from us, the visible and the invisible. In this world of neoliberal globalisation, ubuntu emerges as an ecopolitical alternative. It is a form of knowledge that makes us more humane. To explore the educational legacies of Post-Colonial Africa, the following questions were asked: in the field of peace education, do we have more to learn from the culture of the ruler or of the ruled? However, ubuntu philosophy potentially represents an invaluable contribution to the education of anew humanity capable of implementing perpetual peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The indigenous sub-Saharan African philosophy of ubuntu that comes down to the expression: "I am a human being because of being with other human beings", developed over centuries. This philosophy, embodying the notion of deep respect for all human beings, is rooted in a humane inclination towards kindness and sound relationships among all people. Before its adoption as a principle in the South African Interim Constitution of 1993, ubuntu had never been referred to, or codified in any statutory format. Since then, however, although not mentioned in the final Constitution of 1996, the humane undertones of the ubuntu philosophy have often surfaced in South African jurisprudence, particularly in cases involving citizens' Constitutional right to human dignity (section 10). This paper examines the phenomenon that the actual modern-day practical, day-to-day life in South Africa does not seem to attest to application of the ubuntu ideal of maintaining and improving the human condition. After examining a number of possible reasons for this phenomenon, ubuntugogy is presented as a possible remedy for this condition. This paper reports on an interdisciplinary analysis involving philosophical, societal, anthropological, legal and pedagogical perspectives. A mixed method research methodology in the form of a social science based interpretive-constructivist qualitative approach combined with a legal approach was followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) has gained recognition as an important means of promoting the holistic development of the inseparable social, emotional, cognitive and physical facets of education in the early childhood years. Since early childhood development poses challenges to many young children, the prolonged mandatory closure of ECCE centres during the national lockdown exposed many young children to the additional risk of being deprived of the continuity of learning, security, health and safety. This article draws from a research project in three Bafenyi ECCE centres in the rural area of Ikageng (Potchefstroom) in the North-West province of South Africa and focuses on how COVID-19 influences the holistic development of young children at risk. A qualitative approach was taken, following a participatory actionlearning and action-research (PALAR) design where all participants collaborate as equal partners and construct their own meaning from experiences within the action-learning set (ALS) to advocate for change. Within a critical and transformative paradigm teacherparticipants were encouraged to think critically about the holistic development of young children and to consider how collaboration could lead to social change. The data collection method was limited to the recorded group discussions of the ALS during Cycle 1 of the PALAR process. Given that positive environmental and contextual factors are able to lay the groundwork for holistic development in the early years, the African Ubuntu philosophy of compassion, respect and humanity was viewed as being suitable to serve as theoretical framework for the study. The findings highlight that, even during a lockdown, it vital that collaborative ways are found to harness the precious early years with a view not only to meeting these children's needs but also to laying the foundation for a sustainable future. It is argued that if teachers were to apply the Ubuntu philosophy, they would learn how to make lifelong use of the acquired skills to improve the holistic well-being of young children on an ongoing basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revolutions spring forth and are guided by love. Education, like love, is immersed in the political. It can be argued within the American educational landscape, textbook selections and school policies are acts of ideological evangelization, which serves not to democratize, but to indoctrinate the citizenry and reinforce capitalist ideologies; namely, hierarchical power relations and atomistic individualism (Pinar in What is curriculum theory?, Routledge, New York, 2012; Slattery in Curriculum development in the postmodern era: teaching and learning in an age of accountability, Routledge, New York, 2013). In this socio-political moment, we are struck dumb by the violence and oppression wrought by asymmetrical power relations, and the failure of the American compulsory education system to teach and practice an ethic of love. If Dewey's (Democracy and education, Macmillan, New York, 1916) assertion is indeed true that education is the means through which we grow and sustain a democracy then our educational system(s) warrant a deep re-evaluation—a revolutionary re-imagining, a transformation—guided by/through/with love. This paper through a privileging of onto-epistemologies antecedent to Western thought—the South African philosophy of Ubuntu and the Eastern philosophy of Buddhism—reconceptualizes the Western subject and education as a witness to love. Understanding research as a rendezvous with thinking, this inquiry utilizes (re)Thinking as (non)method and rids itself of the positivist need for prescriptive conclusions. This imagining within the realm of urban education calls us to live out a radical love, which necessitates a revolutionary becoming and opens the possibility of an ethical, more humane future free of the epistemic violence of dominance guided by love and mediated through a pedagogical ethic of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of individual (istic) identity formation is explored within a context of a synergistic and communal support system. Within this context, the intrinsic complexities of the African child who enters the academia with a multiplicity of epistemic identity contestations are simultaneously explored. The ensuing alienation resulting from the cultural displacement from the known and familiar to the unknown and unfamiliar is brought into view as a factor for further interrogation. Attention is thus drawn to the implications for identity formation in this cultural and epistemic displacement. In this discussion the Ubuntu philosophical orientation is presented as part of a transformative pathway of transition into the multiple contextual nuances of identity formation. This is coupled with participatory praxis within the paradigm of community-based action for transformation. The empirical data of this discussion accrues from a study in which the existential realities and complexities of being a Black African in a previously white institution of higher learning were brought into view. This study paid specific attention to the convergence of language and identity in relation to a contextualized understanding of the performance (as it was conceived of in this study) of this cohort. The findings of this study pointed towards the need for a synergistic student support system that would provide individualized or individualistic and customized support. I argue here that the African child is often kept in a cyclical position of pathologizing, insubordination and multilayered subjugation, within a system that does not adequately provide support for this positionality. This paper thus interrogates the possibility and potential of the collective in harnessing the benefit to be derived from communal interaction and engagement in the direction of interpersonal and intrapersonal transformation. In this regard I present the tenets of the Ubuntu way of life within a decolonial synergistic support system that takes into consideration the value of communal interactions but not at the expense of individual transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to decolonise societies, and in particular the field of higher education in South Africa, have frequently been framed in terms of "dismantling" strategies. This article examines the ethico-cultural assumptions implicit in this idea and shows that it derives from a realism of what Michael Karlberg (Beyond the Culture of Contest. Oxford: George Ronald, 2004) calls "normative adversarialism", where power is negotiated conflictually and contests, struggles, and protests are seen as natural and inevitable strategies of social organisation. Such approaches are unattractive, as they effectively deepen coloniality rather than unravelling it. The African moral philosophy of ubuntu provides a very different realism, where processes of decolonisation can be framed as evolutionary, developmental, and integrative. Through the lens of ubuntu, decolonisation can be reimagined as a constructive process of resilience that significantly transcends coloniality. As such, this article also provides a non-exhaustive discourse analysis of how and to what end some decolonisation debates shape and are informed by various understandings of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous work, entitled African Philosophy of Education Reconsidered: On Being Human (Waghid, 2014), a defense is offered for the notion of African philosophy as a reasoned and culture-dependent concept on the basis that any philosophical genre cannot be devoid of reasonableness and dismissive of culture. The premise on which the latter claim is built is two-fold: Firstly, any form of philosophizing involves (and ought to do so) an aspiration towards the attainment of what can be conceived as being reasonably justifiable - that is, reasons are offered and amended to elucidate meanings that can be convincing to others in the inquiry; and secondly, meanings are (re)constructed and deconstructed on the basis of people's cultural stock (a term I borrow from Jane Roland Martin, 2013) - that is, people's images, attitudes, backgrounds, symbols and other ways of seeing things in the world. Thus, as a combination, reasonableness and culture determine what constitutes African philosophy. In this way, it would not be implausible to embrace explications of African philosophy that connect with the reasons people offer on account of their ethical orientations, indigenous perspectives, and/or sagacious utterances. This is what makes African philosophy a reasoned and culture-dependent practice. But then, as with any form of philosophy, African philosophy foregrounds culture in so far as it provides the notion of knowledge with a distinctive form in relation to what Africa has to offer. Put differently, knowledge(s) are a manifestation of the ways in which philosophy organizes cultural understandings on the African continent. This article examines at least three ways in which culture is organized through an African philosophical discourse, and how knowledges are manifested in the practices of people on the continent: Firstly, African philosophy guides cultural practices in accordance with practices of communal interactions - that is, Ubuntu (human interdependence); and, when Ubuntu is under threat, ethnic conflict, political tension and strife seem to hold sway. Secondly, African philosophy orientates people towards an appreciation of an ethical life and, when the latter is tangibly at risk, destruction is perilously imminent; and thirdly, African philosophy inclines people towards some higher good, and when the latter is visibly absent, religious conflict seems to be hazardously omnipresent. My understanding is that Ubuntu, ethics and an inclination towards a higher good are cultural practices that give knowledge, as understood by Africans, a distinctively reasonable form. In short, the reasonableness of African knowledge(s) is guided by an appreciation of Africans' cultures. And, when these cultures are at risk, the potential exists that African knowledge(s) will become misguided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse on human rights education in Africa can only be relevant if it emanates from or at least is informed by and rooted in the philosophies that emanate from the reality or lived experiences of African people. Hence, in this exercise we use the philosophy of hunhu that views humanness in the fullest and noblest sense; the attention one human being gives to another like kindness, courtesy, consideration and friendliness in the relationship between people; a code of behaviour; an attitude towards others and life, and thus a person wo upholds the African cultural standards, expectations, values and norms and keeps an African identity. Invariably referred to as Ubuntu/unhu/botho hunhu can provide a philosophic base of the discourse on human rights education in southern Africa that can be extended to other parts of Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubuntu is an African philosophy of human kindness; applying it in the Global South would fundamentally alter the design of the education sector. This essay argues, however, that the field of international educational development is not, in fact, structured to support an education influenced by ubuntu ideals. Specifically, the educational development milieu includes donors, implementers and academicians who do not sufficiently question the power dynamics which underpin education development. This creates a field where the power imbalances between donors and host governments are not interrogated, where development workers place too much faith in their own knowledge rather than that of local education experts, and where development practitioners rarely appreciate the privilege of working in countries which are not their own. An ubuntu education would alter the educational development field in myriad critical ways, a few of which are suggested in this essay. Educational development programmes in universities and intake programmes for implementers and donors should teach officers humility, appreciating existing local talent and expertise. Donor programmes should incentivise reflective practice which formally embeds appreciation for local culture and expertise, thereby supporting structures which help educational development experts to review their metacognitive processes. The field should also dramatically increase the numbers of local, minority and female educational development practitioners and provide more avenues for advancement for those groups. These are activities which are critical to supporting the education development field, but require a fundamental change of attitude by practitioners to ensure the right kind of relationships between the West and the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, the author introduces the concept of ' convivencia' (peaceful coexistence) as a framework for re-centring education as a moral enterprise. He discusses convivencia within the context of education and society in Colombia, paying special attention to the Colombian rural school model Escuela Nueva (New School). This discussion draws on both previous evidence and the author's own research on the implementation of the Escuela Nueva model in urban areas of Colombia. He discusses several facets of convivencia and parallels with the ideas and ideals of ubuntu. Using convivencia as an organising principle, he presents insights for educational practitioners and researchers related to re-centring education as a moral enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the concept ' ubuntu', an African worldview rooted in the communal character of African life. Some of the same thinking can, however, be found in various Eurasian and Latin-American philosophies. The concept ' ubuntu' is also used in language planning: here, the question of language of instruction is discussed through an ubuntu paradigm. The article focuses on policies regarding language in education, both at the micro-level, where translanguaging and code-switching are central, and at the macro-level, where Prestige Planning is discussed. The assessment practices taking place in schools are also looked at through an ubuntu lens. How far is it possible for developing countries to adhere to an education policy based on their own values when they have to participate in tests like Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Development? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a reflection that critically examines the dynamics of education and the struggle by African people for freedom, control of the mind, self-definition and the right to determine their own destiny from the start of colonial rule to the present. The primary methodological approach is historical structuralism, which stipulates that social reality and facts are determined and created by social agents within structural and historical contingencies. It addresses some of the most powerful challenges and contradictions that explain the ineffectiveness of numerous post-independence reforms, and presents the arguments for relevance and use of African languages, for instance, that have been made since the 1960s. The first section of the paper deals with the colonial imperatives for setting new education systems in the colonised societies of Africa and the initial attitudes of the Africans towards colonial education. The second section critically examines the evolving meanings of Western education in Europeanising African societies, the articulation of their rationale and the mechanism for resistance. It analyses the turning point when Africans began to embrace European education and demand it in the colonial and post-independence era. The third section addresses the roots of the inadequacies of received post-colonial education and the imperative of deconstruction and re-appropriation of African education using an ubuntu framework for an African renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonialism goes beyond territorial conquest: it affects one’s epistemological stance, worldviews and perceptions. Although most African countries gained independence in the 1960s, the impacts of colonialism continue to be present through modern-day globalization as a form of neocolonialism. Education systems in many countries in southern Africa continue to be grounded in Western viewpoints, marginalizing local Indigenous ways of knowing and being (I capitalize the word ‘Indigenous’ because it is a proper noun referring to particular people, their knowledges, ways of living, etc.). An increased number of scholars in southern Africa are engaging with counter-hegemonic strategies as frames of analysis to counter the impacts of neocolonialism. This paper reviews environmental education studies in southern Africa that have applied postcolonial theory as a frame of analysis either explicitly or implicitly. Postcolonial theory provides a platform to challenge the dominant truths espoused by Western thought. In doing so, it paves the way for other truths to have space in the knowledge discourses, including the sub-Saharan African worldview ofUbuntu/uMunthu. While many scholars are engaging with counter-hegemonic strategies, the review calls for the need for further research from postcolonial frames not only in southern Africa but also other parts of the world as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigated how semi-urban, multi-ethnic and multilingual students in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, negotiate their new identities through languaging experiences. Metacognitive reflections of their recreated language spaces were collected through 20 written narratives, which were analysed using a universalist reductionist approach. The results of the study revealed highly complex identifying processes that mark fluid, multiple affiliations and mobile and creative negotiation of an identity matrix through a hybrid language form, Kasi-taal, which breaks boundaries and embeds linguistic systems that were traditionally treated as discrete units. Using a translanguaging framework, I argue that the languaging strategies articulated in the narratives can be valorised to offset the symbolic violence of monoglossic ideologies that are dominant in our classrooms. Recommendations for further studies on identity-building spaces in multilingual language contact zones as well as the logic of hybrid linguistic repertoires are highlighted at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advocates a nonviolent approach to social justice education. First, social justice education literature is reviewed, and two contrasting and influential approaches—critical theory and poststructural theory—are the focus of critical analysis. A nonviolent approach is proposed as an alternative. Second, the notion of social justice is reexamined to reveal its tie with the notion of the individual, and the concept of nonviolence in its emphasis on relationality is discussed. Three facets of nonviolence are further elaborated: relational dynamics, inner peace, and nonviolent means. Third, these facets are translated into important aspects of a pedagogy of nonviolence: Integrating the inner and the outer work; shifting the struggles of opposites to the interdependence of differences; using and improvising nonviolent teaching strategies. To enrich theoretical understandings and inspire practical insights, this article also interweaves international wisdom traditions (including African ubuntu, Buddhist nonduality, and Taoist dynamics), my teaching experiences, and the formulation of a nonviolent social justice pedagogy in teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims to engage, mainly from theoretical perspectives with analytical eclecticism, a historical and contemporary analysis of African educational and social developmental contexts. It relays the real colonial connections that are still attached to this context. The essay relates the historical location as well as the socio-cultural embeddedness of the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which may have indirectly facilitated the initial entry of colonialism. It critically locates the thick philosophical and epistemological problematics that have previously and again, post-factually limited the foundational reconstructions, and by extension, the relevance of Africa's learning and related possibilities for achieving social well-being. At the end, the essay calls for the urgent decolonization of Africa's philosophies and epistemologies of education, so that learning contexts can aid the now non-delinkable desires, indeed, needs for social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While assessment is regarded as integral to enhancing the quality of teaching and learning, it is also a practice fraught with moral and ethical issues. An analysis is made of current assessment practices of teachers in South Africa which seem to straddle the domains of accountability and professional codes of conduct. In the process the position of the teacher as mediator between policies and diverse learner needs is explored in the light of moral and ethical considerations. Based on the notions of ethical caring and caring about, the article suggests the infusing of principles of ubuntu in assessment practices may provide a framework to embed and strengthen morality and ethics in South African school assessment practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we argue that ubuntu (human interdependence) is not some form of essentialist notion that unfolds in exactly the same way as some critics of ubuntu might want to suggest. Rather, we offer a philosophical position that (re)considers the situation of the self in relation to others. The article starts from the general issues at stake in the debate concerning particularity and universalist ethics. We then reconsider the general position of the ethics of care, and particularly how it has recently been revisited by Michael Slote. Following this, ubuntu is characterised as a particular kind of ethic of care. With this in mind, what we shall put forward is an extension of Seyla Benhabib's (2006) view that the self and others should iteratively and hospitably engage in deliberation. Although we agree with Benhabib that iterations (as arguing over and over again and talking back) are worthwhile in themselves, considering ubuntu ('a person becoming a person in relation with other persons'), we find Stanley Cavell's (1979) idea of 'living with skepticism'-particularly, acknowledging humanity in the Other and oneself-as more apposite to extend the theoretical premises of ubuntu. Although the practice of ubuntu is lived out differently amongst Africa's people, we want to add to the diverse ways in which ubuntu can both disrupt and offer ways as to how challenges of human conflict and violence can possibly be resolved. The article finally addresses a couple of educational examples and argues that this approach, by being well-grounded in the life experience of learners, can critically assist the central role of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article defends ubuntu against the assault by Enslin and Horsthemke (Comp Educ 40(4):545-558, ). It challenges claims that the Africanist/Afrocentrist project, in which the philosophy of ubuntu is central, faces numerous problems, involves substantial political, moral, epistemological and educational errors, and should therefore not be the basis for education for democratic citizenship in the South African context. The article finds coincidence between some of the values implicit in ubuntu and some of the values that are enshrined in the constitution of South Africa and that on that basis argues that ubuntu has the potential to serve as a moral theory and a public policy. The educational upshot of this article's argument is that South Africa's educational policy framework not only places a high premium on ubuntu, which it conceives as human dignity, but it also requires the schooling system to promote ubuntu-oriented attributes and dispositions among the learners. The article finds similarities between ubuntu and bildung, whose key advocates, among others was German scholar and intellectual Wilhelm von Humboldt. It argues that it would be ethnocentric, and indeed silly to suggest that the ubuntu ethic of caring and sharing is uniquely African when some of the values which it seeks to promote can also be traced in various Eurasian philosophies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article draws from the biographical narratives of three South African high school female principals which are part of a larger research study in which 26 aspiring and practicing women school leaders were interviewed. Narratives were constructed from in-depth interviews with each participant and analyzed for themes that provided insights into the skills, knowledge, and understanding that contribute to an effective African-centered leadership style that values three key principles of ubuntu: spirituality, interdependence, and unity. Findings indicate these women’s narratives are a testimony to their moral and ethical commitments in which social emancipation, compassion, and care for the community’s children are firmly rooted at the center of their leadership style. This study answers the call for research that explores context-specific leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the South African Ministry of Education's Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (2001), Ubuntu can be seen as a vital sentiment that emerged from the pre-1994 struggle period. In 2008, President Mbeki gave an illustration of this by referring to the recipients of national awards as "the guardians of Ubuntu ". Ubuntu indeed has a special place in the hearts and minds of the people of sub-Saharan Africa, as can be observed in debates about human rights, education, spirituality and quality of life. Those currently in power in South Africa obviously wish to employ it as an instrument for nation-building. In their opinion, adherence to the precepts of Ubuntu could help individuals and their communities to overcome cultural and racial differences in their quest for national unity. Although Ubuntu has traditionally been regarded by the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa as a source of traditional moral values, those values seem not to have been converted into morally justifiable (political) behaviour. How else could one explain the extent of criminal behaviour and the perpetrations of moral injustice (wars, violence, murders, genocide, xenophobia, discrimination against minorities, etc.) across the length and breadth of southern Africa? This article consists of a report on two investigations into the question of why the lofty moral values embodied in Ubuntu have not (yet) been transformed into morally acceptable behaviour. The first involved an analysis of Ubuntu to see what exactly it entailed as a traditional southern-African philosophy of life, as well as to determine why it has so far failed to have the expected favourable impact on community life in the region. The secondfocused on an analysis ofUbuntu-spirituality because of its potential benefits for communal life in general and for education in particular. The problem was approached from two methodological angles. The first was an interpre-tivistic- hermeneutic approach to Ubuntu as such and to the spirituality embodied in it. This was followed by transcendental-pragmatic reflection on the possibility of "thickening" the as yet "thin " Ubuntu values for the purpose of discovering what could possibly be of advantage to 21st century sub-Saharan Africans (transcendental) as we understand the concept at this particular point in time (pragmatic). The above-mentioned investigations revealed several reasons why Ubuntu might have failed to meet the societal and pedagogical expectations of for example, the South African government and educational authorities. One of them is the fact that some of its proponents have romanticized a return to Ubuntu as well as to Ubuntugogy, i. e. education based on Ubuntu tenets. It would be unrealistic to expect 2 Is' century Africans to return to Ubuntu in its traditional tribal form, namely an essentially communal life view shrouded in a haze of mystic antiquity. Another reason for its failure to have a benevolent effect on behaviour can be found in the fact that Ubuntu values tend to be "thin ", in other words, in need of being "thickened" or strengthened by specific religious and/or life view moral content. Because Ubuntu values have not yet been life-conceptually "thickened", they could not be converted into morally justifiable actions and behaviour. As a result, the term "Ubuntu " began to be used as a relatively meaningless slogan. Despite all these negatives, however, Ubuntu will always have a special place in the hearts, minds and lives of sub- Saharan Africans. It is the typical life view of Africa and as such, it will always signify the embodiment of the shared humanity of the people of Africa. The transformation of Ubuntu into a national life view that could serve as a guide for improving the quality of the lives and education of (South) Africans will depend on the effectiveness of its "updating" or "modernizing". Unless this is done, Ubuntu will be doomed to remain a "vital sentiment" and/or a protean term. It will continue in failing to serve as a guiding light for acceptable moral behaviour and as an instrument for procuring national cohesion. One of the ways in which Ubuntu could be modernized is by filling the as yet "empty " or "thin " Ubuntu values (such as "respect for human dignity") with "thickened" content from other life views. The traditional horizontal spirituality of Ubuntu could also be updated. Instead of seeing a person's worth in terms of the practices and rituals of his or her group, a person should also be recognized as worthy in his or her own right. The same applies for the traditional vertical spirituality of Ubuntu. This could be updated by toning down the view of an individual being as a vital link in the cosmic chain, connected to gods, ancestors and descendants. Modern Africans tend not to conceptualize a person s duties, privileges and responsibilities as injunctions from gods or ancestors. Both individuals and groups should instead be made more aware of social contracts that they might have entered into as individuals and in groups, such as those contained in a Manifesto on Human Rights. In addition, they should feel themselves bound to the moral imperatives flowing from their personal religious convictions and life views which, in modern times, tend to be something other than the Ubuntu life view. This approach gives new meaning to individual and group duties and responsibilities. Ubuntu-based education (that is, Ubuntugogy) as well the Western-style education and training that Africa inherited from its colonial past also need transformation to make them more compliant with the requirements of 21st century life. Their respective views of humanity should be "updated", for instance. The dominant cerebral-analytical bias of Western education should be relinquished in favour of taking into account all the aspects of being human (such as emotion and conation). Western-style education should learn from the "adapted version" ofUbuntu and Ubuntugogy mentioned above that educators need to unfold all the facets and potentials of learners as human beings. Conversely, Ubuntugogy should learn from Western-style education that education entails more than the preparation of an individual for a place androle in communal life. In sum, the "new" education for (southern) Africa should become an existential, holistic and integrated process of equipping children with the knowledge, attitudes and responsibilities required for meaningful existence in modern, globalized, industrialized and urbanized communities. Only in this adapted form will Ubuntu values and Ubuntugogy be able to meet the societal and educational expectations of life in 21st century southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the value of educating for peace. It does this through a consideration of the African cultural world-view known as ubuntu, which highlights the essential unity of humanity and emphasises the importance of constantly referring to the principles of empathy, sharing and cooperation in efforts to resolve our common problems. The essay is not based on field research, but rather on a discussion of the issues pertaining to ubuntu and peace education. The discussion focuses on how Desmond Tutu utilised the principles of ubuntu during his leadership of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It also outlines the five stages of the peacemaking process found among ubuntu societies: acknowledging guilt; showing remorse and repenting; asking for and giving forgiveness; and paying compensation or reparations as a prelude to reconciliation. Potential lessons for educating for peace and reconciliation are highlighted based on the premise that the ubuntu approach to human relationship-building can offer an example to the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author shall argue that before Namibian independence in 1990, Christianity was used by some as a weapon of breaking down, or as a tool of, colonialism, racism, and apartheid. In the name of a religious god unashamed acts of violence and wars were committed and resulted in genocide of 1904 to 1908. However, such brutalities did not conquer the African spirit of what is identified in this article as the Ubuntu (humaneness). Inspired by their sense of Ubuntu the Africans, in the face of German colonialism and the South African imposed Apartheid system, finally emerged victorious and accepted the model of religious pluralism, diversity, and the principle of African Ubuntu. We shall, furthermore, argue that the Namibian educational system and the Namibian Constitution, Articles 1 and 21, the Republic of Namibia is established as a secular state wherein all persons shall have the right to freedom to practise any religion and to manifest such practice. It means religious diversity and pluralism is a value, a cultural or religious or political ideology, which positively welcomes the encounter of religions. It is often characterized as an attitude of openness in a secular state towards different religions and interreligious dialogue and interfaith programs. As an example we shall focus on the subject of Religious and Moral Education where such religious diversity and pluralism are directly linked to political, social, and economic issues, as well as moral values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]