Skills transfer lessons from traditional African practice 

Among the Bakiga of Kigezi, Uganda, there is a clan known as the Abaheesi.  Their name is derived from the verb “okuheesha”. The Runyankore – Rukiga dictionary describes okuheesha as forging and shaping iron with a hammer and anvil. This is a clan of blacksmiths. These fellows were responsible for the trade of making all kinds of iron implements and tools that the Bakiga used for farming, war and other tasks in ancient society. That a clan name is tied to an economic skill is indicative that it was the responsibility of adult clan members to train their children with the necessary capabilities to enable them to continue contributing to the society they lived in, using their iron smelting skill. 
The Ngonge clan among the Baganda were responsible for making bark cloth. Similar to their Baheesi counterparts, Ngonge clan elders would have had to transfer the necessary skills to their children for this business to continue. 

Among the Bahima, the Banyankore who are traditionally cattle keepers, a young man would have to get skilled in whatever was required to take care of cows. Their women were necessarily skilled in making products out of milk and satisfying a significant part of their home dietary needs using the outputs of the economic activity passed on from generation to generation. To a large extent, their traditional economic ties with cattle keeping have stuck to this day. The Bahima and Bairu of Ankore formed economic co-existence patterns where the latter grew crops and thus exchanged them for animal products with their colleagues. 

Other examples of economic activity that ran in family lines, clans and other social and tribal groupings exist in the history of traditional Africa. They all emphasize the fact that skilling of the youths was part of familial and cultural traditions. The practice of imparting skills in the above manner made African societies economically heterogeneous, and able to depend on one another economically. 

When colonial influence descended on Africa, the colonizers introduced new practices and patterns that ended up dismantling the traditional setup and economically homogenizing Africa. They also put Africa in a position where the continent’s economy had to necessarily survive on foreign markets. The flooding of African markets with cheaper commodities brought by merchant ships, in the olden days, set the pace for the dying of indigenous African industry. The Kigezi Muheesi’s iron implements became unattractive to the crop farming neighborhood that could then buy tools brought from overseas. 

The Muheesi could not afford to provide market to the farmers’ crops and thus the farmer had to start growing what he could sell to a growing foreign demand. Thus, the traditional skilling of Baheesi youths in iron smelting was no longer useful. They had to start going to school to acquire new skills, and together with the crop farmer’s child, they had to now acquire the very same knowledge and skills from school. They would later have to seek employment from the colonial government after their schooling and compete for the same jobs, the economic diversification of their forefathers forever lost.

When colonial governments promoted what we now call cash crops, and in some instances enforced their growing, the situation landed on the above fertile conditions so created for their adoption. It entrenched mono-cropping practices. It became instantly more lucrative to grow these cash crops as opposed to food crops. The Ngonge clan in Buganda had to bring themselves up to speed with growing, dropping their bark cloth trade that was no longer able to meet their needs. They had to obviously join the same trade as other Baganda clans.

The traditional approach to skilling in Africa appears to have been a key factor against which trade ran. It built a solid trade system. A recent publication by Afreximbank about the history of African trade highlights that trading patterns in West Africa were so established that the Portuguese and other foreigners struggled to break into West African trade networks. Trade in West Africa was oriented inward, and even coastal villages faced inland and not towards the Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese on their arrival on the Gold Coast found that the most popular cloths or textiles were lanbens and aljaravais, both manufactured in North Africa. Blue cloth and beads were also exported from Benin in present-day Nigeria to the Gold Coast. The assault of foreign supply of goods was later to suffocate all this.

We cannot turn back the hands of the clock to what our ancestors did. We can however learn that their skilling system sustained a diversified and practical economic structure. The plumber may as well teach his child the same trade, as would the motor vehicle mechanic. Currently though, they may both send their children to study Zoology at University. 

Raymond is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant
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