UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA (UNISA)
College of Education
⋄
HED4804: Assignment 2
African Philosophy of Education as the Creation of Concepts-in-Place
Semester 1, 2026
⋄
Module Code: HED4804
Module Name: Higher Education and Development
Assignment No.: Assignment 2
Due Date: 2026
Semester: Semester 1, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for HED4804
at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | HED4804 African Philosophy of Education
Introduction
Thinking about education is not a neutral exercise. Every decision made inside a
classroom, every curriculum framework, every idea about what counts as knowledge,
rests on assumptions that somebody, at some point, chose to accept. Philosophy is
the practice of going back to those assumptions and asking whether they still hold,
or whether they ever held in the first place. This essay argues that African philosophy
of education, understood as the creation of concepts-in-place, is not an academic
indulgence. It is a practical response to a world in which borrowed ideas about teach-
ing, learning, and the child have often failed African communities precisely because
those ideas were designed somewhere else, for someone else. The essay addresses
four interconnected areas: the meaning and purpose of philosophy, the relationship
between place, concepts, and educational thinking, the application of the Ubuntu
principle to concepts like intelligence, the child, and the curriculum, and finally, the
question of what an Africanised philosophy of education might actually look like in
practice.
Page 1 of 13
College of Education
⋄
HED4804: Assignment 2
African Philosophy of Education as the Creation of Concepts-in-Place
Semester 1, 2026
⋄
Module Code: HED4804
Module Name: Higher Education and Development
Assignment No.: Assignment 2
Due Date: 2026
Semester: Semester 1, 2026
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for HED4804
at the University of South Africa.
, UNISA | HED4804 African Philosophy of Education
Introduction
Thinking about education is not a neutral exercise. Every decision made inside a
classroom, every curriculum framework, every idea about what counts as knowledge,
rests on assumptions that somebody, at some point, chose to accept. Philosophy is
the practice of going back to those assumptions and asking whether they still hold,
or whether they ever held in the first place. This essay argues that African philosophy
of education, understood as the creation of concepts-in-place, is not an academic
indulgence. It is a practical response to a world in which borrowed ideas about teach-
ing, learning, and the child have often failed African communities precisely because
those ideas were designed somewhere else, for someone else. The essay addresses
four interconnected areas: the meaning and purpose of philosophy, the relationship
between place, concepts, and educational thinking, the application of the Ubuntu
principle to concepts like intelligence, the child, and the curriculum, and finally, the
question of what an Africanised philosophy of education might actually look like in
practice.
Page 1 of 13
