Mwalimu Nyerere

I’ve been reading more of the writings on education of Mwalimu (Teacher) Julius Nyerere, Baba wa Taifa (Father of the Nation). I wrote about my initial reading of him some months ago. I continue to be moved by what he wrote and continue to think that what he wrote about education (formed in great part by his Catholic faith and his devotion to the social teachings of the Church) should inform what we do at OLQP. The words of Pedro Arrupe, a beloved former superior general of the Society of Jesus who died in 1991, echo through the halls of Jesuit schools. He counseled the alumni of our schools to be “men and women for others,” thus urging our schools to be places of formation of young people to be such. Nyerere had the same vision (though as president of Tanzania Nyerere could not complete Arrupe’s thought: “Be men and women for others modeled after the man for others, Jesus Christ).

An English poet, Hillaire Belloc, expressing the power of the colonizer against the powerlessness of the victim penned the couplet: “Whatever happens we have got/The maxim gun, and they have not."

The maxim gun or its modern equivalent will still be used by those who have it against those who do not; and some of those who do not have it will try to acquire it. But increasingly most nations will tend to leave the competition in acquiring the maxim guns to the very rich or to the very foolish. The instrument of domination of the future is going to be education. Fortunately, in the acquisition of that instrument, we can compete and all win with honour.

If, therefore, we do not want to be the permanent source of the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the educated of this world, we must seriously enter this honourable competition for knowledge. So I want to use this opportunity to stress once again, a few points about our education generally…

First our education should be universal…

Secondly our education should be of good quality…

Thirdly, our education should be relevant…

Finally our education should be socially responsible. Education for Self-Reliance is not education for selfishness. Yes it is also for the Self-Reliance of our country. I believe that the community has a responsibility to educate its members. But a poor country like Tanzania cannot afford to educate the selfish. It invests in the education in a belief that such investment is good for both the individual concerned and for the community as a whole. In the language of yesterday: Education for Self-Reliance should be Education for Service.

Not all of us will have the same concept of community, but all of us have a need to belong. However socially insensitive we may be, we have a need to belong to a community of fellow human beings. No human being can make it alone.

The causal factors between education and development are not clear – and even questioned among many very reputable scholars. I think maybe Nyerere gives us a way out so that we aren’t too frustrated in this country when the effects of education are not seen immediately re: development. The first step is to provide an education for a greater measure of self-determination.

However many characteristics of Jesuit education that we list, one is always featured among our graduates: “The Jesuits taught me how to think; how to argue, and how to see the holes in other people’s arguments.” This very sort of education will provide great benefit to the citizens of this great country. We will be educating men and women for others; our graduates will apply their sharp analysis to the problems and proposals faced in this country. Our prayer and expectation is that they will do so not so much simply to benefit themselves, but for the common good of all.

That isn’t the only important characteristic of Jesuit education, of course. We want to form our students not only to be keen analysts of social situations able to act prudently on their analysis for the benefit of the least among us but also to be beholders of the grace of God.