Conceptualisation of Important Concepts
This section intends to conceptualise important concepts that form the core of this chapter. The concepts include indigenous/aborigines/natives, explicit curriculum, implicit (hidden/covert) curriculum, societal curriculum (or social curricula) and indigenous education system.
Indigenous/ Aborigines/ Native Peoples
Native and indigenous are two words that are used commonly to refer to plants, animals even people. It is interesting to see these entities being referred to as native, aboriginal, or indigenous. Most writers would like to associate the concept aborigines with native people of, for example, Australia, Canada and India, to mention just a few. For this chapter, the concepts indigenous (people) will be used to include all these terms.
The term ‘indigenous’ refers to the origin of things or something (for example plants or animals) that are natural and distinctive in a particular context (Msila & Gumbo, 2016, p.98). Simplifying this definition, one can say the concept ‘indigenous’ means to produce, grow, live or exist naturally in a particular region or environment, e.g. indigenous plants and indigenous animals. Other terms synonymous or related to indigenous are native, endemic (peculiar to a region), and aborigines – all meaning belonging naturally to a particular locality. Indigenous or aboriginal peoples are the original inhabitants of a particular country. In Africa, this entails people who moved from one part of the continent to another as hunters and gathers (Msila & Gumbo, 2016, p.99). Taking into consideration the definition of indigenous as provided above, indigenous people are ethnic groups who descended from the original inhabitants of Africa (Gumbo, 2015, p.61).