EDUCATION AS A CATALYST FOR UNITY: BRIDGING CULTURAL DIVIDES IN AFRICA

The quests and advocacies for co-operations, alliances, integration and unity amongst African countries are quite historical, and are ever resonating in discourses on international relations. It is such advocacies that birthed the idea for the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC), etc. Unfortunately, not even the rationale for the metamorphosis from OAU to the African Union (AU) has been able to entrench the much desired unity of purpose amongst African states. This paper posits that the conversations on strategies for a closer and sustainable integration in Africa should not only be centred on socio-economic and political paradigms, but should deeply reflect cultural cum educational matrixes. The paper hypothesizes that cultural transmission, which is a fundamental goal of any educational system, has to be emphatically explored in the drive for integration and unity in Africa. It therefore conceptually highlighted the link between culture and education in regional integration, with reminiscences of such linkages in Africa. The paper however observes that, beyond the affirmations and declarations arising from Treaties and Charters by some regional fora in Africa, the varied uses of education for the purposes of cultural transmission, promotion of African history and languages, in addition to the merits of intellectual exchanges, are to be further surveyed as the plausible templates that would encourage integration in Africa. Consequently, the paper suggests that socio-political institutions, governments, sub-regional blocs and other agents of diplomacy and development in Africa should carefully reconsider the multi-dimensional values of education in the realization of the dreams of African nationalists for a well-integrated and united Africa.