"Listen," says old Africa. "Everything speaks. Everything is speech. Everything around us imparts a mysterious enriching state of being. Learn to listen to silence, and you will discover that it is music.."

Generally, African indigenous education can be described as mainly informal and that the process of learning and teaching take place from day to day experience from birth to death and beyond, as the dead ancestors continue to exert a great influence on the living members of the community, As Okot P'Bitek put, "Man has a boundle of duties which are expected from him by society, as well as a boundle of righits and privileges that the society owes him. In African belief, even death does not free free him. If he had been an important member of society while he live, his ghost continues to be revered and fed; he, in turn, is expected to guide and protedct the living." (P'Bitek, 1986). In this context learning process is intimately linked with the eternal life cycle of the indigenous African society.

Indigenous learning forms have thus to do with the actual living conditions of the people; their view of the universe, God, relationship between the supreme being and mankind as well as relationships between various groups of people. It has moreover to with the natural environment on which the survival and well being of the society depends and determine its mode of production. It is furthermore functional in the sense that it is primarily aimed at helping children in particular and adults learn and master the necessary social and occupational skills which enable them to effectively cope with their sociocultural and natural environment. In other words, it is inward oriented as opposed to the upward Allah oriented Islamic or outward directed western colonial forms of education.

The foreign systems were aimed at transplanting foreign world views and life styles on the conquered Africans. The objective of education in this case was not geared to help Africans live in harmony with their environment; it was rather to establsih and perpetuate the master-slave status quo between the colonizer and colonized. The French and Purtoguese called their westernisation efforts assimilation, the Belgians evolution while the British, being more polite, labelled it as education (Rodney, 1985).

In a policy document entitled "The Cultural Relations between Africa and the Arabs", the Director of Alesco (Arab League UNESCO) Mohi-El-Din Saber lists up the following steps as the strategy the Arabs should adopted for Africa:

1. Teaching Arabic as a second language in African schools, training African teachers, establsihing teacher-training institutes in Africa, providing scholarships for Arabic language and literature to (Africans)...

2. Providing educational and cultural institutions with model libraries that contain Arabic classics, references, dictionaries and books...

3. ALESCO will index and compile Arab and African manuscripts, help and train administrative and technical staff....

4. ALESCO has completed a textbook on Arabic language teaching for non-Arab speakers... which makes it easy to use in radio and TV language education programme. A dictionary of contemporary Arabic is about to be completed under the supervision of an Arab committee of linguist and social scientists. It will serve as as the basis for dictionaries of African languages of Arab origin...

5. A project to grant scholarships to the Federation of African Universities to train their faculty members in variuou fields of at Arab universities has made headway.

6. Establsihing cultural centres (in Africa), which will participate in Arabic language teaching by providing language laboratories and specialised teachers. A pilot centre has already been started in Kenya.

7. To restore its historic prestige and cultural role in Africa, African manuscripts should be published in the Arabic alphabet.

8. Some attention should be paid to Qoranic teaching in Africa which is done in the Arabic alphabet.

9. Because of its importance, the mass media should help provide Arabic films and newsletters subsidised by Arab countries.

10. Arabic books have an important role to play in Africa, and subsidising them should be studied.

11. Upgrading the Arab image in Africa... by rewriting school history curricula and conducting historical and social research on common roots and heritage.

12. Exchange of experts, Arab participation in all African cultural activities and inviting Africans to Arab meetings.

"The historic foundations of cultural and intellectual relations should serve as the springboard of contemporary Arab moves in Africa."

If this is how cultural influence can affect political orientations, then the Arabs could use this venue to win over the Africans more effectively than the Europeans, given their age-old cultural presence in Africa."
"All Africa's cultural heritage is either Arab or written in Arabic alphabet."

The Arab culture helped African languages become languages of culture and science and enabled them to make a cultural contribution, by providing them with an alphabet. The question is why African elites struggle to gain independence only to abandon the very essence of independence by maintaining the most effective colonial fetters for dominating the African mind; education system? The other pressing question is how can Africans develop their own human and natural resources without rehabilitating their culture and building their education systems on the existing indigenous educationenous. The point is to select from, adapt, correct and develop what one has to meet both present and future needs of society. It is not to cling too much to tradition or drop it altogether.

THE AIMS OF EDUCATION
As Mwalimu Nyerere put it once, " The purpose of education, whether informal or formal, is to transmit from one generation to the next the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the society, and their active participation in its maintenance or development." (Nyerere 1982 :17). This is the sort of education which grows out of the local environment in order to meet the needs of the local society. An education whose goals are to enable the society to effectively cope with its environment has to be dynamic so as to meet the changing needs of the society as well as the challenges of on going changes in the life of society. Therefore, every society living under normal conditions will strive to bring up its children to become useful members of that particular community. The ways and means of such upbringing will naturally vary from society to other, because of both objective and subjective conditions peculiar to each society.

THE DEFINITION OF LEARNING
Learning is often defined by pschologists as a "change in behaviour, more or less permanent in nature, which is the result of experience and reinforced practice" (Encyclopedia Americana 1988: 116). Indigenous learning takes place when the experience of the society is transmitted from generation to generation. This process may happen both consciously and unconsciously from birth to death. Whether indigenous or imported, learning can be either positive or negative, depending on what is learnt. It is positive only to the extent that it helps facilitate the fuller development of the useful qualities and potentialities of society and the individual. Learnig, in the context of life long socialization process in traditional societies, appears to be the most natural condition for gainig relevant knowledge. Unfortunately, modernization drive and demands have made the use of artificial settings like schools necessary in order to fit into to modern life style and its endless and often artificial needs and demands.

WEST AFRICA Covering 7,420,000 square km, West Africa stretches from Chad in the east to the Cape Verde Islands off the Atlantic coast of West Africa; and the northern border of Mauritania in the central Sahara and the Gulf of Guinea in the south. It comprises 17 states with the Gambia's 11,295 sq.km as the smallest and Chad's 1,284,000 sq.km. as the largest. With a population of about 100,000,000 Nigeria is naturally has the largest number of people not only in West Africa, in Africa as a whole.

From the fourth to the 18th centuries, there sprang a various and remarkable empires, kingdoms and states. The most important among these were Ghana 4-11 century, Mali, 12- 14 century, Songhay 14-17 century, the states of Mossi, Benin, Oyo, Kanem-Bornu,Macina, Fuuta Tooro, Kayor, Ansante etc. From the 11th century up to the arrival of European imperialist powers during the last half of the 19th century, the region was subjected to repeated hit and run raids and massive invasions mounted by Arabs and newly islamized Berbers from North Africa.

Together with peaceful conversions efforts by Muslim trader-missionaries these invasions resulted in the conversions of most African emperors, kings and chiefs as well as town people.
According to Ch. Williams, such conversions were, to begin with, only pretexts in order to be let in peace, because the invading Arab hordes claimed to be fighting just to spread the rule of Allah. Later rulers became fanatic Muslims who waged Jihad against their non-islamized subjects and neighbours. Therefore, they violated the traditional African concept of unity in diversity, especially in religious matters. The traditional bond between ruler and ruled was severed and people began to see rulers as enemies of the people while chronic interethnic conflicts followed suite. Large political units broke up into splinter ethnic and tribal states, as if to prepared and make it easier for the forthcoming western enslavement and direct occupation of the region.

The newly converted chiefs and kings went to great extent in constructing huge mosques and other religious centres, as if to prove to Allah how deep their Islam was. These religious centres played an important role in the anti-colonial struggle in West Africa. Their antiwestern attitudes helped redynamize and indigenize the Muslim faith in the region as well as block the spread of European education. Ordinary African parents were warned that he who sent his children to European schools would be sent by those same children into hell in next life. This led the French colonial regime to establish a special school for sons of the chiefs who were obliged by law to send at least some of their sons to the French schools. According to oral tradition, most Arab Mauritanian slave holding families chose to send their slave kids to schools in place of their own. Although aimed at promoting Islam and Arab interests, Islamic educational institutions played an important role in the institutionalization and spread of education and literature in West Africa. In addition to being a centre for prayers, social and political platform, the mosque became the focal point for both learning and teaching as well as a place to plan how resist and sabotage colonial education. Several mosques developed into Islamic high educational institutes such as the Shinguit in Mauritania and the universities of Jenne, Timbuktu and Gao in Mali etc.

COLONIZATION The colonization of West Africa by France, Britain and Portugal began around 1850 from the coast and completed in 1934 with French occupation of northern Mauritania. In cultural terms the French and Portuguese concentrated their colonial policies on the assimilation of West Africans into black French or Portuguese who would then be elevated into the level of humanity. In contrast, the British did not bother as if they believed that no black could be elevated to the humanity level of the Brits. Ironically, it was the British who built more and better schools than the assimilatorists.

DECOLONIZATION Independence came as inevitable results of the struggle of the people of West Africa and the positive results of the second World War. There were both armed, political and cultural struggles for independence in the region. Prominent among these liberation struggles, were movements led by Samory Touré in Guinea, Alhajji Oumar in Mauritania and Senegal, Guinea Bisau as well as the political campaigns by Nkruma, Sheikuo Touré etc. In Europe the War left both France and Britain half dead, the public opinion was no longer prepared to swallow imperialist propaganda justifying colonization whereas communism was on the rise and recruiting activists from the colonies. In order to abort total independence, the British established the Common Wealth and the French the French Community while the Portuguese, being themselves as backward and rule by fascist dictatorship regime, declared independence to be inconceivable. Ghana became the first country to gain independence in the region in 1956 and by the 1962 all colonies followed suite, except those of Portugal who had to fight until 1976 when they were not only able to liberate themselves, but they also helped the Portuguese get rid of their dictator Salazar.

ECONOMY AND PRODUCTION West African economic base and production systems comprise primarily of water resources, agriculture, forestry, livestock, minerals and trade. Farming depends on rain fed from seasonal

rain and irrigation water supplies from the main rivers of Niger, Senegal, Volta, Bani, the Gambia etc. Main crops comprise of cereals, millet, sorghum, fundy, maize, rice and large varieties of tubers, fruits and vegetables. West Africa is one of world's leading producers of coffee, Cacao, palm oil, rubber, minerals like oil, gold, iron ore. Livestock is abundant in the Sahelian zone while fisheries are both varied and rich on the coast and in the main rivers.
Traditional trade activities take place both within and between the region and others parts of Africa and the rest of Africa world, especially with the former colonial powers with which West Africa has a depletating dependency ties.

INDIGENOUS LEARNING IN MAURITANIA

An Ewe proverb states that wisdom is like a baobab tree and a single man's hands cannot embrace it. An other African proverb says, "It is through other people's wisdom that we learn wisdom ourselves"; a single person's understanding does not amount to any thing. It is in a spirit of humility that this learning from the other takes place, and this further illustrates the true meaning of life as a relationship of mutually enhancing interdependence. Man is understood to be a created being and there are mythological accounts of his origin which makes him come out of a hole in the ground,or out of a bed of reeds, from the sky, from clay which the creator kneaded or, as the Fulani myth tells it, out of stone, iron, fire, water and air. Humanbeings were usually created in couples at the same time, as in the Dogon myth where the creator kneaded two balls of clay and out of the balls emerged male and female(Opoku 1986).

In my early childhood, I learned how to look after our calves making sure that they would not get out and mingle with their mothers and suck up all the milk on which we depended. Socially, I learned how to behave toward my parents, siblings, other relatives, neighbours, adult persons, my peers etc. These process of learning has been gained by observing and imitating, obeying or disobeying the practical and moral teachings of the senior members of the community. My parents had eight kids; four girls and four boys. The first three were girls, the forth a boy, then the forth girl and finally it was my turn. I was followed by two brothers. In our traditional community teaching and learning are not clearly defined or executed. Most of it is implied in what is being done or said. This makes indigenous learning more natural, exciting and easier to grasp and digest than the artificial setting of the modern school. It is even more so, when we consider the fact that all primary modern schooling is done in foreign languages. This is a double weapon which not only superimposes foreign cultural values on Africa but also it does destroy the cultural base of the community.

Indigenous education tends to be very relevant for both the learner and his socio-economic and environmental needs. Being from a seminomadic and cattle breeder family, our education was geared to help us become good cattle breeders and useful community members of whom our society could be proud. That means acquiring adequate and appropriate wisdom, knowledge and skills and behaviours expected from such persons. As the gender division of labour was clear cut, our up bringing was differentiated accordingly. The same criteria held true in terms of the division of labour along caste lines. Each occupational caste brought up its younger generation in order to preserve and enhance the socio-economic role of its respective caste. Even slaves seem to be conditioned to follow suite.

THE STRUCTURES. Writing about indigenous education in Africa the African American historian, Chancellor Williams: "Primary education included storytelling, mental arithmetic, community songs and dances, learning the names of various birds and animals, the identification of poisonous snakes, local plants and trees, and how to run and climb swiftly when pursued by dangerous animals.
Child training also included knowing and associating with members of one's age-group as well as brothers and sisters, and regard them as brothers and sisters until death and beyond." The next grade ... was teenage through eighteen, ...training and education became more complex and extensive... the boy was now required to learn his extended family history and that of his society, the geography of the region, names of neighbouring states and the nature of the relations with them, the handling of weapons, hunting as a skilled art, rapid calculation, clearing the bush for planting, the nature of soils and which kind grew what best, military tactics, care and breeding of cattle, the division of labour between males and females, bartering tactics, rule of good manner at home and abroad, competitive sports. The apprenticeship system in which one became a skilled craftsman was one of the most important of second ." (Williams 1987)

THE ROLE OF FESTIVALS RITUAL CEREMONIES IN EDUCATION
Already when a women becomes pregnant, children are taught to respect and treat her well, and most importantly to avoid disappointing or frightening her. If neighbours cook special meals the pregnant women have to be given some of it, otherwise they will likely abort or at least the kid be born with scars. After seven months of the first pregnancy, the woman is as rule supposed to return to her mother's house where she would give birth and stay for at least one month after.
This was the case with all my four sisters. This customs does not only teach young people how to treat pregnant women well, it does teach them to accept and respect nature and life as well as reinforce family and community bonds and cooperation. I still remember how happy and proud we were when we became uncles, and all our first knifes where named after us. It was so exciting when our sisters' husbands, their families and friends came to the naming ceremonies of these little knifes.

DURING THE SEASONAL FESTIVALS The most important are the ones that take place at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, pilgrimage and the birth of prophet Mohammed. In addition, there are various festivals during the rainy season for the herders and harvest for the farmers as well as naming and marriage ceremonies. At all these events, people meet, sacrifice animals ranging from chickens to camels depending on one's wealth. Children receive a lot of gifts and get the chance to meet their non resident relatives, age groups and so on. Especially during such events, one is supposed to spend time and eat together with one's age mates during which kids and grown up exchange ideas and experience with their pairs. I remember how we used to play all sorts of games like competition to demonstrate our intellectual and practical knowledge. Storytelling, speaking in coded proverbs and solving riddles were hot discussion topics. All these folklore have a clear teaching role. Among the hit story was about a jealous man who does not trust living in town. He moves out and erects his house in the bush and surrounds it with a several metre high wall without any entrance. He locks up the charming wife. He makes a ladder which he uses to go in and out of the house when it is absolutely necessary...his arch enemy and boy friend of his wife was smuggled in by friends who disguised themselves as personnel of the chief. He discovers the plot after several days, which makes him loose the little common sense he has. He escapes and keeps on running aimlessly until he gets so thirsty and runs into an Arab who was leading his camel with some sort of a tent put on the back of the beast. After the Arab has quenched his thirst, the jealous guy tells how he has been betrayed by his wife. Being so sure of himself, the Arab laughed and laughed so much at the poor negro and he says " you people do not know how to handle women and prevent them from committing shameful sins. Look at this camel I never let it go, when I use my hands I tie the lead around my waist. You know why? It is my wife who is up there. Let's see if you do not believe what I say." He orders the camel to bend down and a man jumps out! They escape together into the bush in panic. After several days they meet a marabou with a hundred camels each carrying a thousand books. They ask the marabou what are all these books about. He tells them that the books are about the various characters of women and how to control them. They decide to follow the marabou in order to learn from his knowledge. The expedition spends night at a village whose chief receives and treats them well and slaughters a cheep in the honour of the marabou. Under the evening moon light, the marabou lectures non-stop about his knowledge of women's issues... while the who menfolks of the village sit around him and admire his deep knowledge. Children come and go as errand boys and girls. One of them is a girl who feels offended by the marabou's arrogance and disrespect of women who have been pounding millet and making food for him....

THE ROLE OF PARENTS
Despite thorough islamization, the concept of living dead is still vivid in Africa. There is a general consensus that Africans, believe in some sort of social contract between, the dead, the living and those to be born. As K.A. Opoku asserts " death is not the opposite of life, in reality the opposite of death is birth; as death takes away members from the community, birth makes up for the losses inflicted on the community. Traditional education gives primary place to personal relations and to be human is to be in relation not only with members of one's family, clan or community, but also with the spiritual beings as well as with nature. The importance of relationships lies in the fact that each person shares in common familyhood with all others-those who are dead, those who are alive and those who are to be born (Opoku 1982: 53-4)

chiefs and elders all have rights. If one of them distributes property unequally and a young man complains, he is asked. "Are gueno's -god in Fulani- shares equal?" And he is told: "No, they are not. Take then what you have been given and when your time comes to apportion shares, do as you see fit."(The Unesco Courrier May 1990).
Therefore, parents or their substitutes, are the first and the normally the most intimate teachers who have the greatest influence over the growth of the person.

THE MOTHER like everywhere else, the mother is the most important member of the family unit and as such she plays the most crucial role in the early growth of a child. In Fulani, people say "Biddo ko Kosam." A chid is the milk of the mother. Another proverb says "So lella diwi biyum soratah."
When a gazelle jumps its baby will not creep under, but jumps like the mother. This is equivalent to the Scandinavian saying: "the apple does not fall far from the tree." Despite our relatively big number and all the other responsibilities it was our mother who brought us up.
Our father was (Ancestor's Gods bless him he died in November 1987) was a frequent travelers. One of his trips was to go on pilgrims to Mecca when I was expected. He got stuck in Khartoum in Sudan and was not able to come back before I was already three years old. My mother was helped by my sisters who were grown up. They learned through direct participation from our mother how to look after us, draw and fetch water from the well or pond. They learned how to collect and fetch firewood, pound millet and prepare food, how knit straw trays and baskets. They even learned how to decorate indoors and select and put what jewry and when. With regard to us the boys, she taught us to behave like men and should be honest and reliable for "whatever the hoe pulls it pulls it right under and between the legs of the farmer." A little guy called Sammoudy from the east was hired to look after our cattle. He stayed with us for more than ten years. He was a great runner and with excellent talismans that he would ask people to take sharp knives and sick him in the stomach or try to cut off his tongue without success. She is very peaceful and I do not remember seeing her fight with any one. Our mother is totally illiterate but with a lot knowledge and good memory. She is very strong both physically and in her character. She always says the most important thing in life for is to know that her children are happy and that they all marry good partners from families with good roots. She says that no matter how much wealth, the best and most valuable property for a fulani is the cows, which makes one rely on oneself and community. For life without independence is meaningless. We have been trying to bring her to stay with my older brother who is a lecturer at the university in Nouakchott for the last eight years, but she refused. She says that she is afraid of becoming dependent on any one, including her own children, and worse still to become dependent on money. For us she is the sun around which we orbit like satellites to receive the necessary energy.

THE FATHER
The father is supposed to be responsible for child's masculine and intellectual character. fathers should as a rule teach their male children all the accumulated knowledge of the family including the secret one. The male progenies are the future preservers of the family survival and prosperity. The daughters are going to be married and move to increase and strengthen other families. Although he could read only a few verses from the koran and that he could hardly write his name, our father knew a lot. Because of being one child and that his mother died when he was very young he learned how to look after himself fairly early which no doubt influence his whole life. He could tell by heart our genealogical tree for several generations and knew a lot about Islam. In addition to having travelled widely, he was a great negotiator and respected peace mediator. He knew a lot about various medical herbs and how to find his way in the darkest night. When he was home, he worked a lot with even making food or fetching firewood and breaking them up for cooking. He was a non believer in purely traditional magic. His plan was to take us the boys first to the Koranic schools and then the modern schools. He apparent gave up the idea when our eldest brother was almost starved and worked to death by the marabou who was entrusted to teach him the Koran. Our father's main worry with the western modelled education was that it weakened people's belief in God and "feminized men's character while women became more like men". Like most African fathers our father was strict, but he would never punish or reproach us after having committed the " crime". He tended to concentrate more on preventing us from doing wrong things than punishing us after it was too late. During meal times, he made us sit on the floor with out feet crossed and stuck out from the right side. We had to hold the calabash from moving by our left hands while using the right to eat. One should not take too much, from other people's sides of the calabash, eat too fast or look other people in the eyes. With guests around, we had to keep them company even if we were filled up, we should pretend to be eating until all the guests are satisfied.

ELDER BOTHERS AND SISTERS
When the parents are not around, elder brothers and sisters take over the guiding role of parents. As Poul Riesman put, " the importance of a person's age is a matter not of his being close to death but of his being far from birth." (Riesman 1977). One has to add that such importance has also to do with his having more life experience. Children spend lot of time with their elder siblings with whom they carry out various tasks. In addition, they act as errand kids for their elder relatives as well as carrying out intermediatory missions between the elder brothers and sisters on the one side and others. In terms of work, one would usually start out assisting one's elder sisters or brothers. As I have already mentioned ours sisters are much older than the boys. This resulted in that each one of them some how "adopted" one of us the boys. Being boy number two, our number two sister adopted me and I still have closer relationship to than the others. Later on our eldest sisters got twins ( a boy and girl) and our mother adopted the girl after two weeks of her birth. The sisters did teach us about almost everything including how to draw water from the well and water the cows which is traditionally men's work. When our elder brother grew up, he took over the male tasks. In fact it was our elder he who first went to study in Kuwait and when he returned he encouraged me to leave Mauritania for the Gulf states as the situation was already hopeless.

CROSS COUSINAGE
In order to live in peace and harmony with our relatives, community members and neighbouring clans and ethnic groups children are taught to respect certain social rules. Among such rules is the is the cross cousinage social system according to which one has a joking relationship with certain people. It comprises of four categories. 1) Between children of biological brothers and sisters. These two groups have no soci.political or economic reasons to quarrel. Matrilineal societies they do not inherit from the same line or persons as it was the sister's children who inherit the wealth and title of their maternal uncle. In patrilineal societies the children will inherit their respective fathers who normally are not related. In Fulani culture, it is a taboo for children of the sisters and brothers to fight. They tease one another and exchange gifts during social events and festivals. During a wedding customs allows sons of sisters to go steal cows or other things from their maternal uncles. During importance seasonal festivals, one is supposed to watch out for one of the joking cousins may sneak into one's compound and then he has to be given a present.

2) Cross cousinage between totemic (family) names for example Diallo and Ba or Dia and Sow. Here tradition emphasizes peaceful and constructive relationships and cooperation. Clans are not allowed to eat certain parts of animals and that it is taboo to fight and especially to shed blood of one's totemic cross cousin.

3) Between regions like Bosoya in the middle Senegal Valley and Yirlaabe in the lower Valley. No matter how older the opposite cousin is or how powerful he is one can always throw jokes at and tease him.

4) Between ethnic groups such as the Fulani and Serer. Fulanis used to make a lot of jokes about the former president of Senegal Seghor and how on earth a Serer could be a president. As is the case with the first three categories, it is taboo to offend and hurt one's opposite cousin. If one does break the taboo one has to apologize and compensate the damage, or else a disaster will befall the community of the taboo violator.

INITIATION RITES
Initiation is a very important stage in the life cycle of an African. The educational role of initiation rites and practical learning about community life and natural environment are crucial in facilitating the transition from childhood to adult life and the making of family. The initiation ceremony involves the circumcision of boys and in certain societies girls as well.
One goes through the process with one's age set guided by a specialist adult person. As John S. Mbiti confirms, "The blood which is shed during the physical operation binds the person to the land and consequently to the departed members of his society. It says that the individual is alive, and that he or she now wishes to be tied to the community and people, among whom he or she has been born as a child. This circumcision blood is like making a covenant, or s solemn agreement, between the individual and his people. Until the individual has gone through the operation, he is still an outsider. Once he has shed his blood, he joins the stream of his people, he becomes truly one with them (Mbiti 1975:93). Before the intrusion of Islam and western influence, girls were initiated after the first menstruation and boys from the age of 20. The foreign effects has lower the age drastically. I was 13 when went through the process.
There was no anesthesia. We were kept in the bush for one month and had a camp leader who taught us almost everything about life in our community and that we had become men and responsible members of the community.

THE TEACHERS
"In traditional African society, every artisanal function was linked with an esoteric knowledge transmited from generation to generation and taking its origin in an initial revelation. The craftsman's work was sacred because it imitated the work of Maa Gnala and suplplemented his creation... the craftsman's activity in operation was supposed repeat the mystery of creation.
It therefore focused on occult force which one could not approach without respecting ertain ritual conditions...creation was bound up with the power of the Word. It is said: The smith forges the Word, The weaver weaves it, The leather-worker curries it smooth." (A. Ham Páte Ba 1981)

In the indigenous African society, practically each and every adult is a teacher. The first teachers one encounters is the parents and relatives. Some parents even take the responsibility to teach their children Islamic matters. Our father taught us the basic knowledge that each Muslim is required to know in order to pray correctly. Being a non-literate society, accumulated knowledge and wisdom is stored in the heads of the adult members of the society. As Ham Paté Ba put, when an old African passes away, it is a whole library which disappears". As such parents, older relatives and others play a very important in the life long learning process of the individual. In addition, their are a host of specialists who teach various skills. Prominent among these are gold and iron smiths, skin worker, weaver, wood worker, spirit mediums, medicine persons, witch craft persons, psychiatrist, healers (moccoove), midwife, lootoowo, circumcisers, musicians, storytellers, historians etc. These specialized teachers are so much involved with their particular subject that it is not just a profession or a means for economic survival, but it is an integral part of their lives and the lives their clans. Work here is as sacred as worship and thus they have to be prepared both psychologically and spiritually before they undertake their task. Teaching takes place during a long process of apprenticeship according to which the learner submit himself and devote his service completely to the teacher. There is supposed to be a mutual trust and understanding between the teacher and his pupil.

THE PUPILS
The nature of indigenous schooling makes the learner starts out very early. The knowledge handed down by non-specialized and specialized teachers is normally relevant and appropriate to the pupil. Learning process here happens by doing and living and experiencing the subject matter. As such it seems to be more natural and thus less boring. Both the learner and instructor have a direct interest in the success of the process. The learner tends to be more keen paying attention, especially in the case of socialization process when teaching and learning are less rigid and formalized. With a specialized teacher such as smith or weaver, the learner needs to be very observant, patient, obedient, submissive etc. Devoted service, full trust of the knowledge and good will of the teacher is a precondition for acquiring skills and the necessary blessing to practise a given skill. Pupils normally learn through apprenticeship at an specialist. This learning process may take several years or even decades.

THE CONTENT OF LEARNING
"Basic education in the...developing countries might have gone on and been achieved even before the first year of the formal schooling process. For, before that, children had continuously, methodically, though informally, been trained by their parents, families, lineages and clans in the various roles relevant to their growing up and the assumption of various adult statues" (Husen,1984)

The mastery of one's parents special skill, that of the clan and the expected behaviour and social codes of conduct within that family, clan and tribe and their interaction and relation with the neighbouring communities: relations between parents and children, between the younger and older siblings, brothers and sisters; cross cousin systems within and with others, different skills, town and villages, ethnic groups, parents in law, the parents of one's age group.
Geography, history, soil structure and conditions, what sort of economic activity suits where, climate, seasons, everything that effects people's living conditions physically, emotionally (zawre), nutrition, basic medicinal herbs and first aid practical knowledge, animal and plant life, how to survive and find one's way home when one gets lost in the bush or desert.

THE ISLAMIC OF EDUCATION
The objectives of the Islamic education are" (a) to create balanced growth of the whole personality; and (b) to acquire two categories of knowledge: (1) perennial knowledge derived from the Koran and Sunna,, that is all Shari'a oriented; and (2) Knowledge based on experiences in the various part of the world and on scientific findings (Daun 19992:44).'

ISLAM: when and why did it come and how did it get foothold in West Africa and Mauritania? The impacts of Islam in education, the problem of the Marabou, how Islamic is he?, the issue of apprenticeship, slave live conditions, the future of the Marabou.

COLONIAL LEGACY
Sowing seeds of division by providing two forms of school systems for the two ethnic groups, while at the same time clearly favouring the Arab-Berber component. Predominantly Arab areas could have had Arabic as the main instruction medium and French as the second whereas corresponding Arab areas have African languages as first and French second. Regardless of which language was used as the instruction means, goals, contents and methods of educations should have been geared to help pupils realize their full potentials so as to be able to cope with their local social and physical environment and beyond.

Amazingly enough however, Arab children were provided with schooling in both Arabic and French with emphasis placed on their Arabic mother tongue. The African children by contrast were taught only in their colonial masters' own French language. For both Arab and African children alike, the contents of education offered in French language had more to do with glorifying the French way rather than reflecting their Mauritanian and African realities and their place in the larger international community.

THE DILEMMA OF MODERN NATION STATES AND EDUCATION Why do African nations keep on clinging to foreign languages? transcitizens, foreign language its positive vs negative sides.

THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION IN WEST AFRICA AND MAURITANIA "Basically, we have three priorities: we to apply our own remedies, however limited, to our problems; we have to develop education, and we have to provide work for the people" (Ousmane, the Unesco Courrier, jan. 15,90).

The forced Arabisation campaign has not only marginalised non Arab Mauritanians, but it has also distorted the quality of education offered to Arab children. It is common to heard teachers say that what Arabisation wrought was that children do neither master French or Arabic. Officially the literacy- in French and Arabic- rate stands at 17%. Though the teaching of African languages has been officially recognized since 1979, mastering an African language does not yet make one join the club of the "literate". It was the French who conspired with the Arabs to impose Arabic for the first time in Mauritania in 1959 (Livre Blanc,1991). Ould Daddah reinforced this cultural imperialism by his (Bantu) Arabisation Act of 1966 which imposed Arabic on all school children from the first school year. Thus, from the age of seven the African child has to battle with learning two alien languages (French & Arabic), both laden with long imperialist traditions. In 1979, Ould Daddah's regime published a circular declaring "Arabisation of