Neo-liberalism and the Declining Reading Culture at African Universities: Reflections on Social Responsibility of Intellectuals

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s there were lively and fervent intellectual debates and discussions at the University of Dares-Salaam, Tanzania. The debate revolved around how Africa could extricate itself from the barbaric capitalist socioeconomic system. It was pioneered by the radical wing of the University students who, partly, sought to transform the erstwhile colonial education system whose purpose was mental enslavement into the socialist education for liberation of mankind. Today, not only that such a debate has fizzled out, but more importantly, the paucity of the culture of reading has characterised the entire educational system in Tanzania. The purpose of this article is to highlight the social factors responsible for this state of affairs. It is claimed that the onslaught of the neoliberal policies pursued by monopoly capital through its financial institutions, namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and in collaboration with the compradorial ruling classes in African countries, have been the principal forces responsible for the process of undermining the education system in Africa in general, and Tanzania and Nigeria in particular. In Tanzania today, for example, in contrast to the aims and ethos of the Arusha Declaration and the policy of Education for Selfreliance, the education system is for preparing candidates for the labour market, and hence, for subordination, exploitation, and the generation of mental confusion. The paper ends up by one, calling upon the left intellectuals in Africa to do a “rethinking” of the said issue, and two, by suggesting a tentative programme for reviving the culture of reading in Africa.

Keywords: neoliberalism, commoditisation of education, the decline of the culture of reading