Graduation from wisdom society to knowledge society is inevitable and South Sudan no exception
By: Athiaan Majak Malou, RSS DEC. 4/2011, SSN; South Sudan like any other African traditional society has retained a void in new political thinking and administrative/managerial practices because we re-invent the old way of doing things as the foundation of political participation and other activities of public sphere. In African traditional societies that did not have structured systems of government, the council of elders wields the power through wisdom which is supposed to have been acquired through experience. Wisdom, in this respect, “is the ability to make sensible decisions and give good advice because of experience that you have”. However, there could be pearl of wisdom and yet wisdom can be questioned sometimes, because it may not work, it is old fashion or outdated all together. Tribal society was governed by what Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi, the Director of Kenya Institute of Governance, called “gerontocracy,” the dictatorship of older males. The fundamental assumption of this society is that wisdom, which is gained through experience, is the foundation of ‘knowledge’. Thus the older you get, the more you know. Gerontocracy is based on the assumption that all challenges are modified representations of past challenges. Hence any time society has to deal with a pressing question, wise elders reflect on the past, when a similar issue was dealt with. If didn’t find a precedent, they invent it. But today, it is possible to marshal a rejection against re-invention or reversal to regressive ways of doing things. The rationale of wisdom society is under threat. The democratization of information, the vertical learning curve of modern schooling, and the growing popularity of knowledge society reduces the authority of accumulate experience of the seniors. Contrarily, in knowledge society, every challenge is confronted by question: “what are the best practices?” in dealing with such an issue. Vertical comparison of contemporary experience has no respect for accumulated years. In the rapidly changing world of our time, the challenges of today and alternative solutions are distinctly different from those of even every recent past. The problem with Sudanese politics in the old Sudan and now with South Sudan is that it is the same new characters with the same ideas who keep dominating political arena. Imagine, somebody like Saddig El Mahdi, who was a prime minister in mid 1960s, he became the primer minister again 20 years later in mid 1980s; and then vied for presidency 20 years later in 2009 and he is continuing in active politics. Where is change? The situation is not different in our New Republic of South Sudan because it is politically an offshoot of the Sudan. The parliamentarians of the times of Abel Alier and Joseph Lago are still in the parliament today. The people who had been constitutional post holders in El Bashir regime for the last twenty or so years are now in the current cabinet. What about the new Sudan, we’ve been craving for? According to the Late, Dr. John Garang, New Sudan needs what he called ‘paradigm shift’, which means a great or important change in the way something is done or thought about. Can political leaders of 1960s still be relevant in 21st centaury? Their minds set were about colonialism and liberation which is no longer the concern of this time. Now the issues are very different. The main issues now are connected with globalization i.e. how to be competitive and economically viable globally as an individual, a company or a country. Nowadays society needs leaders who think globally and act/perform locally. The political policy governing the change of political characters in modern society can be analogized with leaves of a tree. The leaves of trees (plants) which are tasked with making food for both plants and animals, through a bio-chemical process known as photosynthesis, grow every spring and when winter comes they fall down to give way for new leaves to grow. No single old or dry leaf will remain there. Even if it remains up there it will not be useful to the tree because it is not effective biologically. It is dead. This is true with USA White House, whereby an outgoing president leaves with his 1000 or so staff and the new president comes in with the same number of new staff. Such exercise of frequent and comprehensive change is important because is gives chance for a new way of doing things. The renowned Nobel Lauriat in physics, Albert Einstein once put it that, ‘you cannot do things in the same way and expect change’. The world is growing and the issues that affect human society are growing in magnitude and complexity. This requires new characters, new knowledge, new skills, new attitudes and new methods. In this respect, one can say that the societal problems have become generational, thus the need for each generation to be given a chance to deal with issues in hand. One such area of generational problem is education. Education can only be meaningful if pupils leave the schooling system with skills and competencies they can use in the modern working world. Schools have to do more than teach reading, writing and arithmetic — pupils need to be educated to become independent and critical thinkers. They also have to learn computer science, which is a requisite for information and communication technology (ICT). The curriculum is the tool to achieve this objective and should be designed in such a way that what is learned in one grade forms the step for what can be reached at the next. One of the criticisms leveled against African schools is that pupils do not learn how to learn, or how to be problem-solvers or take initiatives. These strategies should be taught in schools. Also, in most African countries, the subject matter is archaic, having not been revised since colonialism. Pupils are taught by rote and many by unimaginative untrained teachers who struggle to bring lessons to life. The Nepad 2004 document on education states that Africa’s further education institutions are producing inadequate numbers of skilled personnel, inferior skills relative to the quality required, and skills that do not match the needs of the job market. Therefore, now more than ever, high school curricula need to change to include some level of technical or vocational training that pupils can use at the end of their schooling or further explore and define at tertiary level. Education and training are undoubtedly sound investments for any country and its economy. Governments must therefore do more to encourage vocational training, offering incentives for schools and parastatals to train staff through formal courses and apprenticeships. They must fund literacy and skills training aimed at adults, and change regulations and incentives so that the for-profit education sector may flourish. This also means that governments and businesses ought to collaborate to identify skills shortages in the market and to design programmes and incentives to address them. Like in other parts of the world, time is ripe for south Sudanese to cast aside the masks of past scenes and mould their politics and civil affairs in regalia befitting changes that are desirable locally, regionally and globally. Contributed by: Athiaan Majak Malou, A former Commissioner of Yirol East County in Lakes State and currently a finalist post graduate student doing MA in Education Management and Administration at KIU-Uganda. 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