African Indigenous Proverbs and the Institutional and Pedagogic Relevance for Youth Education: Lessons from Kiembu of Kenya and Igbo of Nigeria

Abstract

This paper raises fundamental questions about struggles of Indigenous philosophies and the ways educators can teach multiple bodies of knowledge to enhance youth education. It adopts a comparative approach to the study of African proverbs focusing on two communities highlighting the points of convergence [and divergence] in their cultural knowledge systems. Within the African traditional context proverbs as a way of knowing are deeply embedded in the community’s cultures, histories, Indigenous cosmologies and worldviews.