It is often said that Africa lacked any form of education before the colonisers came. That its people lived and died barbaric. That its people barely knew what education meant until the European missionaries introduced the concept of the classroom, textbooks and school bell. But long before any African child ever sat behind a school desk, he was already learning from a system that dated back centuries.
But they forgot or rather simply neglected the beauty of Africa's educational systems. It was a strict blend of traditional methods and content transmission. Culture was central to this education and so was the equipment of an individual for effective living and social responsibility.
Learning Forms in Pre-Colonial African Societies
Pre-colonial Africa was made up of a vast network of societies, each owning and cultivating its own unique system of transmitting knowledge and skills. What an individual learnt, who taught them and how they acquired that knowledge depended largely on the society into which they were born. While differences existed between the way of life of these societies, similarities also abounded partly because many of them were interconnected.
Trade brought people from different communities into contact, migration carried customs and practices across geographical boundaries, while intermarriage, warfare and religious exchange created opportunities for knowledge sharing. As a result, certain practices could be found across societies that were otherwise very different from one another. Storytelling, for instance, served as a means of teaching history, customs and moral values in many African communities. Apprenticeship was another common feature, which was often used to transmit specialised skills such as metalworking, weaving, pottery and other crafts. The mobility of these craftsmen was particularly crucial to cultural and economic exchanges between societies.
But beyond these similarities, what did education actually look like for the African child? In many societies, learning began at home but ultimately extended into the wider community. A child learnt by observing, doing, listening and being corrected. Storytelling, riddles, songs, proverbs, games and initiation ceremonies also served as crucial avenues through which knowledge was passed on.
As children grew older, however, the nature of their education began to differ. While boys and girls shared some aspects of their upbringing, their training gradually took different directions. What they were taught and the skills they were expected to acquire were largely influenced by their sex, age, and place within society. For girls, this meant acquiring knowledge and skills that would prepare them for the responsibilities they were expected to undertake within their families and the wider community.
The Education of the Girl Child in Pre-Colonial Africa
The girl child often learnt from three distinct sets of people as she grew: first, her mother, then her grandmother, and finally, other women in her community. Depending on her society, her education extended beyond her immediate environment, taking her into workshops, farms, royal courts, religious institutions and spaces where knowledge was passed down through generations. While in some societies, only men tilled the land, in others, girls learnt to cultivate it. In some societies, women were responsible for preparing medicines, and girls learnt the knowledge behind them. In many others, women were central to building and managing a home, so girls were taught household management and the customs of their people. But this was not only domestic training. Across much of West Africa, women ran the markets, and girls learned trade by carrying goods, counting, bargaining and keeping track of debts. In many regions, girls were apprenticed into crafts dominated by women, such as pottery, spinning, dyeing and, in places, weaving. In societies where women traded and kept their own income, these lessons were an economic education as much as a moral one. In societies that afforded women greater participation in public life, girls could also acquire knowledge that prepared them to take part in the affairs of their communities.
So, yes, the nature of the girl child's education differed across African societies, as did the expectations placed on girls and the opportunities they were allowed to be exposed to. Some forms of education were so specialised that only girls in particular families or social classes were allowed to have access to them. And while much of this learning took place within the family and community, some societies developed more organised ways of educating women, with designated teachers, structured lessons and networks through which knowledge could reach women beyond the immediate household. One such example emerged in the nineteenth-century Sokoto Caliphate.
Nana Asma'u
Around 1838, in the city of Sokoto, in what is now northern Nigeria, a woman scholar began appointing teachers.
Her name was Nana Asma'u, daughter of Usman dan Fodio, founder of the Sokoto Caliphate. Born in 1793, she grew up in a family where Islamic scholarship was central to everyday life. She received an extensive education in Islamic theology, law, history and literature and could read and write in four languages: Arabic, Fulfulde, Hausa and Tamasheq. She was also a prolific poet, with more than sixty surviving works covering religion, history, politics and the social responsibilities of her people.
Asma'u had a rather ambitious mandate in pre-colonial Sokoto: to take women's education beyond the walls of individual households and into the wider Caliphate. To achieve this, she chose learned women, trained them and gave each a lesson plan, appointing them as teachers. These women were known as jajis. Each received a tall hat called a malfa, wrapped with a red turban, which served as a symbol of her appointment and authority. The jajis travelled across the Caliphate, teaching other women, including those who lived in seclusion and could not easily leave their homes to attend lessons.
Asma'u's system was particularly interesting because the women she trained were not simply expected to retain the knowledge they acquired. They were expected to pass it on. The women who gathered to receive instruction became known as the 'yan-taru, meaning those who congregate together. Through these groups, religious knowledge was shared among women who could, in turn, pass it on to others. It was a network of female learning that did not depend on every woman having direct access to Asma'u herself.
Her teaching also went beyond the memorisation of religious texts. Poetry was particularly important to her method of instruction. She used poems she had created, as well as other Islamic writings to teach women about religious obligations, moral conduct, history and their responsibilities within the community. She also composed works in languages such as Hausa and Fulfulde, alongside Arabic, making religious knowledge accessible to women who might not have been familiar with Arabic scholarship. Her writings were memorised, recited and used by the jajis in their lessons.
Interestingly, the responsibilities of the jajis extended beyond teaching. They also provided marital guidance, assisted women during childbirth and offered counsel on matters affecting their families and communities. They therefore occupied an important position in the lives of the women they taught, serving as both educators and mentors.
Asma'u's contribution did not end with the women she personally trained. Her writings continued to circulate and were used as teaching materials long after her death in 1864. The tradition of women's Islamic learning associated with her also endured, and her name remains an important part of the history of female scholarship in northern Nigeria.
Her story cuts against one of the most common assumptions about Africa's past: that girls had no education until missionaries opened schools for them. The truth is that pre-colonial African societies educated their girls constantly and deliberately. What they did not do, for the most part, was put them in classrooms, and what they taught was shaped by what each society expected women to become.
Schools in the Forest: The Sande Society
In Sierra Leone, Liberia and parts of Guinea, girls' education took an institutional form. The Sande society, an organisation run entirely by women, took girls into secluded camps in the forest for their initiation into adulthood. Among the Mende, this practice was known as Sande, while similar practices among the Temne and Bulom were known as Bondo or Bundu. These were not ordinary gatherings of women. They were organised societies with their own leadership, rules, traditions and systems of instruction. Each community had its own local lodge, headed by senior women who took charge of the initiation and education of the younger girls.
The girls incorporated into these societies were usually initiated around puberty and had to spend a period living away from their families in a secluded forest enclosure which was referred to as the Sande bush or bush school. Depending on the community and the period, this could last several months or even years. During this time, they were placed under the guidance of older, experienced women who served as their teachers and instructors. There, the girls were gradually introduced to the knowledge, customs and responsibilities expected of adult women in their society.
The curriculum was broad. Girls learnt farming, domestic management, fishing, spinning, crafts, traditional medicine, sexual matters, childbirth and childcare. They were also taught the history and customs of their people, songs, dances, social etiquette and the rules governing relationships within their communities. This included how to conduct themselves in marriage, how to relate with their husbands and co-wives, how to raise children and how to observe the customs expected of them as adult women. Those with particular aptitude could acquire more specialised knowledge, including herbal medicine and midwifery, which carried status in the community. Songs sung at night ended with the society's laws. Above all, girls learned discretion and respect for the authority of senior women. The education was therefore practical, social and cultural, preparing girls for the different responsibilities they would assume as they returned to their communities.
But the Sande was not simply about teaching girls how to run a household. It was also an institution through which women exercised authority. The society had a hierarchy of female leadership, with senior members known as sowei among the Mende. These women supervised initiations, preserved the society's traditions and exercised authority over its affairs. Some occupied positions of considerable influence within their communities, participating in the resolution of disputes and the regulation of social conduct.
One of the most interesting expressions of this authority was the Sande masquerade. Unlike most African masking traditions, in which men traditionally perform as masked figures, the Sande women wear and perform in masks. The ndoli jowei, often called the dancing sowei, wears a polished black wooden helmet mask, along with a costume of black raffia fibres and cloth. The mask has its own unique representation; the ideals of female beauty, dignity and authority. It is also associated with the spiritual power of the society. These masquerades appeared during initiation ceremonies and other public occasions, announcing important stages of the girls' transition into womanhood. The masked woman was not merely a performer. She represented the authority and ideals of the Sande itself.
The Sande society also gave women a degree of collective power that transcended the camps. In some communities, a membership was important for women who wished to occupy positions of authority or participate in community affairs. Sande had its own rules and mechanisms for regulating conduct, and its senior women could exercise considerable influence over matters affecting the community.
In parts of Liberia and Sierra Leone, its relationship with Poro, its male counterpart society, also gave it much influence within the wider political and social organisation of the community. In this sense, a girl who completed her initiation was not simply returning home with a collection of newly acquired skills. She was becoming a member of an established women's institution with its own authority, traditions and networks.
However, Sande had downs that cannot be overlooked. Initiation traditionally includes female genital mutilation, an integral part of the initiation process. The procedure has attracted considerable criticism because of its physical and psychological consequences, and women within the communities themselves have disagreed over its continuation. Some defend it as an important part of their cultural identity and initiation into womanhood, while others advocate preserving the educational and communal aspects of Sande without subjecting girls to cutting.
The Sande therefore presents a particularly interesting example of female education in pre-colonial Africa. It brought girls together under the instruction of older women, gave them practical and specialised knowledge, preserved cultural traditions and prepared them for participation in adult society. It also provided women with an organised institution through which they could exercise authority and influence the communities in which they lived.
Chisungu Education Among the Bemba of Zambia: Lessons in Clay and Songs
Further south, among the Bemba people of present-day Zambia, the education of girls took another interesting form. It was known as Chisungu, an initiation ceremony through which girls were prepared for womanhood. The ceremony usually followed a girl's first menstruation and lasted several weeks, during which she was placed under the instruction of senior women known as the banachimbusa. These women were responsible for teaching the girls the knowledge, customs and responsibilities associated with becoming a woman in Bemba society.
The education was quite extensive. Girls learnt about menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, marriage, sexual conduct, child-rearing and their responsibilities within the family. They were also taught domestic skills and the customs of their people. However, what made Chisungu particularly interesting was the method of instruction. Rather than relying solely on verbal teaching, the banachimbusa used songs, dances, dramatic performances and clay figures known as mbusa to teach their lessons. Each figure represented a particular aspect of life and carried a lesson that the girls were expected to understand. Some represented the human body and sexual relationships, while others communicated lessons about marriage, family life and social responsibilities.
One particularly interesting teaching material was the three-stone hearth. The three stones represented the husband, wife and child, each playing a part in supporting the family, just as the three stones supported a cooking pot. Through such illustrations, girls were taught about marriage, cooperation and the responsibilities that came with raising a family. Songs accompanied these lessons, helping the girls understand and remember the meanings attached to the different objects.
The girls were also made to spend a period away from their ordinary daily activities, receiving instruction from the senior women. Some lessons were reserved for the initiates and were not shared openly with outsiders. At the end of the ceremony, the girls were formally welcomed into womanhood through celebrations, songs and dances. Thereafter, they returned to their communities having acquired knowledge that was considered necessary for their new stage of life.
The anthropologist Audrey Richards documented the ceremony during her fieldwork among the Bemba in the 1930s. In her 1956 book, Chisungu: A Girl's Initiation Ceremony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia, she provided a detailed account of the different lessons, symbols and activities that made up the initiation. Her work demonstrated that Chisungu was not merely a celebration of a girl's transition into womanhood. It was a deliberate system of education through which older women passed down knowledge, customs and social responsibilities to younger generations.
Similar institutions existed in other African societies, from the bojale of the Tswana to the initiation camps of central and southern Africa. Although their practices and teachings differed from one another, they shared an important feature; the education of girls was largely entrusted to women, who prepared them for the responsibilities and expectations of adult life.
The Introduction of the Western Mission Schools
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mission schools began springing up in Africa and they introduced more girls to reading and writing. But this did not necessarily mean that girls received the same education as boys. By 1922, girls accounted for only about 38 percent of pupils in mission primary schools. Even within the schools, their education often took different directions. Boys were taught reading, arithmetic and carpentry, while girls were taught needlework, cookery and laundry. Much of their training was directed towards preparing them for Christian marriage and motherhood.
This was the education that became increasingly available to African girls. And while it created opportunities for some to become teachers and nurses, it also limited the kind of knowledge and skills they were encouraged to acquire. Economic historians have found that the gap between boys' and girls' education widened during the first half of the twentieth century, a period when mission schools provided much of the available formal education. For many girls, these schools opened new opportunities. For others, they replaced a broader system of learning, much of which had been organised and taught by women, with an education that placed greater emphasis on domestic responsibilities.
An Honest Accounting
None of the narration above means that pre-colonial Africa was a paradise for girls. The education they were exposed to was shaped by the expectations of their societies, and in many communities, much of their training prepared them for marriage, motherhood and responsibilities within the home. Some practices also caused lasting harm. But it is important to recognise that girls were being educated. Their education was organised, purposeful and, in many cases, entrusted to women who had acquired knowledge over generations. It also gave some women the skills, income and authority to play important roles within their communities.
Nana Asma'u and the network of women teachers she established are a reminder that the education of African girls did not begin with the arrival of European missionaries. Long before mission schools spread across the continent, African women were already teaching other women and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.
So, what would girls' education in Africa look like today if the systems that already existed had been developed and expanded alongside the introduction of formal schooling? What might have been possible if the jajis and the women who ran the forest schools had been part of the foundation on which modern African education was built?
