Forging a university-aided indigenous community education: Village elders and social development in a secondary city of Cameroon

Nation building in Africa requires a rethink and interrogation of different forms of indigenous and modern education within a framework of engaged learning. This chapter unpicks the instrumentality of a university outward-facing learning approach, in partnership with community stakeholders to foster social development. The conceptual ideas of engaged learning, indigenous knowledge mediated through higher education institutions are crucial for developing competent and development-oriented learners. Developing a context specific framework, underpinned by a synergy, and harnessing the knowledge capacities of higher education in concert with local communities to enhance social development are fundamental to an outward-facing engaged learning environment. Through partnerships, suitable channels of learning can enable diverse voices to be embedded in curriculum development. Findings from a qualitative study with community leaders and actors of higher education in Cameroon indicate that utilizing community resources engenders social resilience, vital for building up sustainable and inclusive learning. Evidently, Indigenous people have a knowledge base and such home-grown knowledge holds the potential of developing rounded learners and instigating sustainable social development. Social and ecological knowledge embedded within communities are mediated through university outreach activities. For many local communities, such indigenous knowledge reflects the ways they have come to understand themselves and their environment, and how they relate with a wide range of resources and organise themselves to enrich their life and environment which clearly constitute a valuable resource for capacity building. In promoting engaged learning, community interviewees point to a repertoire of local interventions and relevance of indigenous knowledge and practices, which have a direct bearing on local governance architectures, biodiversity, climate change, agriculture, conservation, food security, medicine and conflict prevention, construed as fabrics of social development. From findings, different policy initiatives emerge, the most critical being a useful co-production of hybrid forms of learning through integration of indigenous knowledge to address local community needs. This form of integration is premised on locals showing appreciation and conformity to knowledge which is relevant to their context. In driving policy, there is need to equip learners with mainstream indigenous knowledge, approaches and processes, amplified by co-mediated social development strategies, tailored to meet the needs of community and expectations of learners. Finally, universities and other institutions of higher education should build an engaged curriculum of social change, in partnerships with local stakeholders.