African Hermeneutics of Western education: A case of Yuyi Wamunyima Mupatu of Barotseland, Zambia, 1897-1982

An African proverb states that “until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter†. This is the case of the historiography of Western education in Africa, which was largely Eurocentric. Unlike many studies that are Eurocentric, the objectives of this article were to examine the history of education in Africa from the African’s point of view; to demonstrate that Africans were not passive recipients, but that they engaged Western education in a dialogue with indigenous African education. This has been achieved by examining the career of Yuyi Wamunyima Mupatu of Mongu-Lealui district, a man who made a significant contribution to the hermeneutics of Western education in Zambia. He became a teacher at Barotse National School but was twice fired for refusing to compromise on quality education. Mupatu led a movement that significantly decolonized education in a time which was forbidding. He established Makaplulwa School in 1945 but the school was closed due to local governance challenges in 1949. In 1963, the school reopened. Today Makapulwa School stands as Mupatu Combined School in Limulunga district. The study concludes that Mupatu’s is contribution to education is a demonstration of African people’s capability to interpret western culture and also their desire to retain what was African even as they embraced the West. It is a story of adoption, interpretation and adaptation of Western education. Mupatu was a product of both the Barotse indigenous education and Western education. To present this discourse, I relied on primary sources, mainly information from those who knew him; family members and his former pupils, his biography and other secondary sources on the subject. The study is significant because it highlights the people’s aspirations of what education should be in Africa.