THE INDISPENSABLE PLACE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE CURRICULUM OF SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY DEGREE EDUCATION: A REFLECTION

Stephen Azubuike OGUJI; Kingsley Ekene AMAECHI

Stephen Azubuike OGUJI Imo State University, Owerri
Kingsley Ekene AMAECHI University of South Africa

Abstract

This paper presents the recent African Renaissance approach in the academic discipline of philosophy in South Africa and its exceedingly rich values in critical thinking and African identity, as indispensable in the curriculum of South Africa’s university education. Its argument comes against the backdrop of seeming public disdain and lukewarm attitude towards philosophy as a discipline, and general criticism of the discipline in the South African context as “boring and abstract”. The main thesis is that the overt sentiment that philosophy does neither teach practical skills nor produce physical or material needs in modern South African society; and hence, has limited relevance in the decolonisation curriculum agenda of academic degrees lacks merit. In contrast, if the very purpose of university education in South Africa remains “to produce well-educated” African students, African renaissance-based philosophy should occupy a very important place in the reform and decolonisation agenda of the academic curriculum of university degree programs in South Africa. By its nature, such philosophy focus in the curricula promises to be one of the best approaches to help students imbibe logical reasoning; pay attention to the unrelenting pursuit of true knowledge; and continuously commit to sets of given and verified truths, yet search for new ways to improve and justify established truths within their disciplines. Adoption of such focus can also provide the foundation upon which accepted theories, hypotheses, and arguments of other degree programs can re-developed.

Author Biographies

Stephen Azubuike OGUJI, Imo State University, Owerri

Stephen Oguji, PhD, is an academic staff at the Department of Philosophy, Imo State University Owerri, Nigeria, with a specialty in Philosophy of Religion and Existentialism.

Kingsley Ekene AMAECHI, University of South Africa

Amaechi Kingsley Ekene (PhD) is currently a South African National Research Foundation's rated researcher. He works as a research fellow at the Department of Religious Studies and Arabic, University of South Africa. Before his appointment, he worked as a lecturer at the Department of African Studies (now the Department of Arts and Social Sciences), at the University of Venda. He has a joint bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan and Pontifical University, Rome; a master's degree in Sociology of Religion (from Norwegian School of Theology and Social Sciences, Norway-MF) and a doctoral degree in Religious studies (from the University of South Africa- UNISA).