The importance of education can never be underplayed in any society as it is the most potent weapon given to man to transform, change and liberate him and society from the slavery of ignorance and backwardness. Education allows man to attain a rapid development in all ramifications. It should be known from the outset that universities in Africa are moulded on the foundation and systemic structure of the Western ideologies. There are salient multi-faceted and multi-dimensional barriers towards the pursuit of higher education in Africa. The aim of this paper is to examine the challenges of higher education in Africa, which hinders its process of producing a body of knowledge that will elevate the human condition and posit it for all-round development.
Many African societies are patriarchal, based on the supremacy of the male over the female. According to Mba (2009, p.322), “emancipation of females is one of the greatest achievements of the women’s struggle globally”. As a continent, African culture accords a superior status to the male such that strength, freedom, independence, honour, courage and other positive attributes are ascribed to the male gender, while attributes of weakness, fear, dependence among others are ascribed to the female gender. Crimes of less magnitude are considered as “female” crimes and attract less stiff punishment. The killing of Ezeudu’s first son by Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart for example, is described as a female crime. On the nature of the crime, Achebe writes “the crime was of two kinds, male and female, Okonkwo committed the female because it had been inadvertent. He could return to the clan after some years” (p.87). In this paper, the Feminist theory is used to examine the portraiture of females in two short stories by two African female writers. In this article, the family is categorise as a fundamental part of the social life of Africans, it attempts to expose the bias of African culture against the female in favour of the male, and consider how this social reality impacts negatively on the female psyche. The stories reveal that women themselves aggravate the situation by working against themselves. We conclude that female empowerment is a must for all females, and that just as governments are projecting education for all by the year 2020, the women’s movement should also target education for all females by the year 2020, because as the stories reveal, the educated female character fares better in the society than her less literate counterpart.
Twenty-first century scholarship is replete with studies on the effect of globalization on indigenous culture in less developed countries. Such studies have accorded the African world ample space because globalization has fostered epochal changes in Africa’s cultural terrain. Though more subtle in recent times, in comparison to the hegemonic tendencies of the colonial past, it has created monumental changes in the social, economic, political and spiritual life of African groups. Notably absent, notwithstanding, are theories to explain the extinction of values and quest to recover pristine African cultural life which globalization has remodeled. Thus, this study seeks a philosophical insight into the historical realities, trajectories and impact of globalization in Africa. It captures what many regard as African existential predicament. It shows the character of globalization in relation to Africa, drawing attention to the objectives, actors, gainers, and losers of the process. To ensure this, this research reflects on certain fundamental questions such as; what is globalization? What are its objectives? What is the role of globalization in the formation of cultural identity? How are the West and its allies captured in the process? What is culture? Where is the African family, the African child and African religion in globalization? The basic interest of this study is to epistemologically establish that globalization has had corrosive effect on African culture, which is tantamount to distorting the vital force that could facilitate African development.
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