TÉRMINOS Y CONDICIONES Consideraciones generales para su llenado:

Finally, I present African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) (Lekoko & Modise, 2011) as a proposed organizing ideology to counter the neoliberal framework particularly in operationalizing the lifelong learning approach. According to Lekoko and Modise (2011), the shift from the lifelong education to lifelong learning approach that came during the 1990s does not warrant shifting the responsibility of learning from the state to the individual. In other words, it does not necessarily mean bowing to the demands of the market economy as influenced by the neoliberal framework (Hager, 2011;Torres, 2011; Youngman, 2000). Lekoko and Modise (2011) view the lifelong learning approach as a torch for education and learning that is relevant, appropriate and needs to be appreciated by Africans. They argue that the approach needs to be conceptualized within an AIL framework. The framework proposes a lifelong learning approach that is entrenched deep in the practices, cultures and knowing of many Africans. AIL also has fundamental implications for the African perspective on the lifelong learning approach (Lekoko & Modise, 2011).

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Autocentric: ‘development based on domestic, human needs and the use of local resources’ (Kondo, 2012, p. 4).

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The AIL framework is the collective versus the individualistic and competitive approach to learning, learning that is context-based for relevance and the immediate application of skills, attitudes, values and knowledge. The AIL framework also allows learners to continuously validate indigenous knowledge and promote the validation of their experiences and the reality of their social living as they interact with friends, family, and the entire community. Therefore, time in this framework is perceived as the composition of events rather than years, months, weeks, days, hours or minutes (ibid.) In my view, the AIL fundamentals make the lifelong learning approach different from the Western lifelong learning approach.

The first fundamental of the AIL framework of lifelong learning is that it promotes collectivity versus the linear, market driven and individualistic form of learning promoted through the neoliberal framework. The AIL framework promotes ‘We’ versus ‘I’. The ‘We’ defines ‘aspects such as learning in action, immediacy of application, interactive methods and time valued in respect of events that constitute it’ (ibid., p. 16). Success is viewed as collective rather than individual.

The second fundamental on this approach is the validation of experiences and the reality of social living and influence in life-wide learning, thus active interaction with family, friends and the community at large is vital. The approach promotes indigenous education and learning which is supressed by Western concepts. In AIL, education and learning are functional. They help to prepare the young people to fit into society at large as there are teachers and instructors for all forms of educational provision: informal, formal and non- formal. For instance, through observation, children (boys and girls) learn livelihood skills from their parents. They may acquire skills, knowledge, attitudes and values by observing at very early stages of their lives and later practice under the guidance of parents to plough fields, perform household chores, and generate income.

AIL is characterized by the goal to produce useful members of society. The goal of education in this framework is to produce citizens with good character, health, knowledge about the community, history and beliefs. So, the formal educational curricula should not only be built on or recognize informally acquired knowledge but should also have Africa and particularly their home country as a focus. Focusing on the local rather than regional or global environment promotes immediate application, self-learning, and experiential learning rather than abstract knowledge. This means the approach, promotes transfer of learning amongst learning institutions; learning in schools is not separated from learning in the wider society. It is argued that this separation does not prepare Africans to be productive in their communities.

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Within AIL, the world is not viewed universally but it recognizes contexts in the continuous acquisition of relevant skills, knowledge, attitudes and values (Lekoko & Modise, 2011). The recognition of individuals’ contexts provides the opportunity for lifelong learning being continuous and a validation of indigenous knowledge. Individuals view learning as an event- in-action thus questioning the logic and consequences of linear and numerical perspectives. In other words, the approach supports learning as lifelong, life-wide and life-deep as it promotes interaction between learner and what is learnt.

Learning in AIL allows individuals to tap into the accumulated knowledge of locals and also to have a voice in educational decisions rather than echoing leaders or bureaucrats’ voices (Lekoko & Modise, 2011). Lastly, viewing learning as an event-in–action results in time being perceived as functional and situational or a composition of events, for instance, most elderly people in Eswatini do not know their dates, months or even the years of births; all they know is the event that was happening when they were born. Some were born during drought, just after the Second World War (Emasotja nakabuya emphini), or when the King was installed (Nakubekwa inkhosi); even their names would capture the event.

The criticisms of AIL might be that it does not help African countries in the context of the modern ‘game’ of neoliberal globalisation. Others might be that it is backward-looking, ethnically or tribally based and fundamentally rural. However, AIL emphasizes the social validation of the individual’s functionality; developing the individual’s confidence in being a responsible citizen rather than competing for the market economy (Bandura, 1977). This individual functionality may entail performing exceptionally well in small social community groups such as ‘stokvels’12, income generation and other support groups rather than competing for formal jobs.