ICH4801
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,UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS
EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS
January/February 2023
ICH4801
TAKE-HOME EXAMINATION
INTERNATIONAL, COMPARATIVE AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION
100 marks
Duration: 4 hours
This paper consists of 7 pages.
INSTRUCTIONS:
• This examination is presented in the form of extracts from the textbook and questions.
• This answer script must be submitted online.
• Please indicate the sections and headings of the answers clearly.
• Take careful note of the time allowed for completing and submitting this portfolio.
• The portfolio consists of two sections: Section A – History of Education (50 marks); and
Section B – Comparative and International Education (50 marks).
• Answer all the questions.
• The mark allocation per question is indicated.
DECLARATION
(Your portfolio/examination script will not be marked if this is not completed.)
I, …………………………………………………………………
(Name and surname)
Student number: …………………………
Module code: ……………......................
hereby declare the following:
I understand Unisa’s policy on plagiarism. This examination is my original work produced by myself.
I have duly acknowledged all the other people’s work (both electronic and in print) using the proper
reference techniques as stipulated for this module.
I have not copied the work of others and handed it in as my own, nor have I made my work available
to any fellow students to submit as their own.
Signature………………….
Date:……………………….
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SECTION A: HISTORY OF EDUCATION [50]
Section A is based on the extract below, which was taken from chapter 7 of the prescribed
textbook, Decolonising education in the global South: historical and comparative international
perspectives (Seroto, Davids & Wolhuter, 2020). Read the extract and then answer the
questions that follow.
Background
Timbuktu is a city on the crest of the Niger River in Mali, West Africa. Timbuktu is known for its
wealth of thousands of written manuscripts that are under restoration after a long period of
decline and neglect. Timbuktu was once the centre of African teaching and learning, when in
the 15th century, the University of Sankoré had a student enrolment of over 25 000 (UNESCO,
2007:7). The history of Timbuktu is inextricably connected with Muslim Andalusia, which was
the world’s intellectual centre for arts and science before it was invaded by Christians
(UNESCO, 2007:7). Timbuktu is proof that Africa’s intellectual legacy was not confined to the
oral tradition. The presence of untranslated manuscripts refutes the stereotype that Africa
possesses no written texts, thus dismissing a deliberate attempt by colonialists to discredit
Africa’s linguistically based intellectual heritage. Nearly 1 000 years ago Timbuktu was a
meeting place for traders from the northern and southern areas. By 1100 it was an established
trade centre for goods from Europe and Asia. Goods such as salt, cereals, cloth, utensils,
weapons, paper and manuscripts were traded. The people of Timbuktu became very rich. They
had money to build houses, buy art and books and Timbuktu became a central place of learning
and education to people as far as Asia, Middle East and Europe. By the 1500s, Timbuktu was
a city of 100 000 people. By the end of the 1500s, it was attacked by Tuareg nomads and later
taken over by the Moroccan army. France colonised Timbuktu in the early 1830s and it became
an independent country in 1960.
Timbuktu as a learning centre of the world. At the beginning of the 1100s, a number of
African rulers had converted to Islam. In the early 1300s, Timbuktu became part of the great
Empire of Mali under the leadership of Mansa Musa. Mali became an important place for Islamic
teaching and learning. Sankoré Mosque had large, excellent libraries and teaching faculties
that attracted scholars from all over medieval Europe and North Africa (Jeppie & Diagne, 2008).
These scholars wrote thousands and thousands of manuscripts. Over the past eight centuries,
the manuscripts, written on delicate paper, have become hard and damaged by neglect, dust,
the dry climate and even insects such as termites. Many manuscripts have begun to
disintegrate or break up. Thousands of tourists visit Timbuktu every year to see the famous
mud buildings, such as the Sankoré Mosque (Obilade, 2013). The scholarship of Timbuktu
existed before Europe became an important centre of knowledge and culture. The emergence
of Western scholarship is normally ascribed to the 16th century Renaissance and
Enlightenment movement – a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries
in which thoughts and notions concerning God, reason, nature and humanity were synthesised
into a worldview that transformed the developments in artistic expression, philosophy and
politics. It is now acknowledged that the Renaissance was influenced by the ‘Golden period of
Islamic culture’ (Gearon, 2017), which included the places of knowledge production in Africa
such as Timbuktu and Andalusia – modern Spain and Portugal. Since the incursion of
colonialism on the African continent, there has been a decline in intellectual activities and
knowledge production. African villages began to fall apart as the colonisers gradually replaced
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local traditions with colonial education and as the culture disappeared, so did the knowledge
that had enabled Africans to be self-reliant (McGarvey, 1997). It is estimated that the number
of manuscripts to be found, but still to be restored and translated, stand at 180 000. Of this, 25
per cent have been inventoried and less than 10 per cent catalogued, while 40 per cent are
locked up in containers. Excluded from this number are thousands of manuscripts stashed away
in homes as family heirlooms and treasures. Currently, great interest and resources are being
expended to restore and preserve this African legacy to correct the inaccurate perceptions
created by colonialism. Needless to say, given the current political and social conditions in Mali,
the restoration of the Timbuktu libraries is a costly project and still far from completion.
South Africa and the Timbuktu manuscripts
Despite UNESCO’s interest in the restoration of the Timbuktu libraries, the project was given a
major boost in the early 21st century when interest in it was rekindled by former South African
President Thabo Mbeki. He visited one of Timbuktu’s main institutions, the Ahmed Baba library
in 2001. Ahmed Baba (1556–1627) is perhaps the best known of Timbuktu’s scholars. His
family were scholars, judges and legal philosophers in the 1500s and he studied under his
father and grandfather. The family library was large, but his own library was considered small
containing only 1 600 manuscripts. As a student he had to study works of grammar, mysticism
and Muslim law. During the Moroccan conquest of Timbuktu in 1593, Ahmed Baba was exiled
from Timbuktu. He later returned as a scholar. He wrote approximately 50 to 60 texts, including
philosophical writings on power and knowledge, law, and the enslavement of Africans. The
following expresses a common view on the value of scholarship, in his book Tuhfatu-l-Fudala:
‘One hour of a scholar laying on his bed, but meditating on his knowledge, is more valuable
than the worship of a devout person during seventy years. The ink of the scholar is more
precious than the blood of the martyr’ (Iziko Museum, 2008). On realising the wealth of
knowledge in need of conservation and restoration, Mbeki promised to conserve the thousands
of manuscripts held in Timbuktu at the Ahmed Baba Institute (Jeppie & Diagne, 2008). This
promise from South Africa was an expression of Mbeki’s ‘African Renaissance’ philosophy
which he expounded in his famous ‘I am an African’ speech in 1996 (Jeppie & Diagne, 2008).
Mbeki’s vision of an African Renaissance is the antithesis of the dominant Afro-pessimism that
portrays the continent as a lost cause. According to Mbeki, intellectual and cultural exchanges
are as important as the political and economic collaboration needed to strengthen African
capacity. It was from this commitment to a vision of African renewal that a South African project
on the Malian manuscript history was initiated. Historians and academics all over the world,
including those at the University of Cape Town, are translating the Timbuktu manuscripts as
part of the Presidential Lead Project (Iziko Museum, 2008).
