Critical thinking, inquiry-based learning and educational revival in Africa

THE Edu Revive 2026 is a timely event that addresses the cogent needs of students, teachers and society. Early in the 21st century, the Nigerian, nay, the African educational system is in dire straits and needs rejuvenation. The state of education in Africa necessitates a rethink, some renewal. Contemporary developments around the globe compel a review and a reevaluation of teaching and learning modalities. Africa is still associated with underdevelopment and poverty. Its economies are failing, and the youth and professionals are leaving in droves in search of jobs and a better life in the West. The advent of Artificial Intelligence(AI) has given rise to a lot of anxiety. AI has revolutionized the way humans learn. And the school system must think ahead and make the necessary adjustments to stay relevant.  While AI offers opportunities for learning and intellectual growth, it also exposes humans to new dangers, risks, and challenges.  AI has made current teaching and learning methods obsolete. Schools or teachers, as we know them, no longer have the monopoly on knowledge and information. Learners no longer rely on school books and curriculum, on materials provided by teachers, preachers, or parents for knowledge and information. Simply put, education has been diffused, decentralized, and democratized.

Many people get their information from the internet, or they ‘ask Google’ and ChatGPT. They no longer wait on the teacher or priest to inform them. A fresh perspective on education as envisioned by Edu Revive 2026 has become an imperative, an existential and pedagogical necessity.  In this presentation, I argue for a shift from rote to inquiry-based learning in schools. I propose an approach driven by two mechanisms: questionstorm and diverstorm. As active learning tools, these techniques help students make sense of the deluge of information, misinformation, and disinformation they encounter and process. Humans are in an information age, which is an era when huge amounts of data, facts, and knowledge are communicated and circulated. Human beings are also in an age of misinformation and disinformation. That is a time when false, inaccurate, erroneous, and mistaken ideas are streamed, shared, and posted. Thus, it has become pertinent to ask: how can students and learners effectively cope with the stream of mass information and disinformation? How can schoolers contend with the mess, muddle, mix, and menace of all sorts of data, ideas, and knowledge?

How does rote learning disadvantage schoolers and learners, further jeopardizing their prospects of meaningful existence? How can inquiry-based learning help and be effective in navigating complicated challenges of the age?  Before answering these questions, let’s briefly explain rote learning. Rote learning is a memorization technique. It relies on repetition to recall information, without deeply thinking about it or understanding it. In schools, pupils learn the alphabet, states and capitals, and multiplication tables by rote. They memorize the information and recall it by repeating it.  When students learn by rote, they get confused or thrown off balance when confronted with complex situations, when asked questions that require reflection and deep thinking. Rote learning makes students unable to think and deal with issues that conflict with what they have been taught or told. In such circumstances, students appear clueless and unable to offer insights and perspectives beyond what they have been given, taught, or asked to memorize. Meanwhile, to survive and thrive, knowledge gained through repetition does not suffice. To meaningfully live in a time of mass information and misinformation, students need critical thinking skills; they need the ability to process ideas and evaluate what they have been taught. Learners should be able to exert intellectual discernment, distinguish sense from nonsense, facts from fiction. Students should be able to detect and identify errors, falsehoods, prejudices, and biases. Simply put, schoolers need inquiry-based learning.

Inquiry-based learning is an educational approach driven by asking questions and generating problems. The class is an exemplary community of inquiry where students’ curiosity and thirst for new information and ideas propel the learning process. Inquiry-based learning is a cooperative venture between teachers and students. Teachers do not present materials for knowledge upfront. Instead, they serve as guides, and as stimulators of inquiry and facilitators of learning.  I use two concepts to explain this learning process. They are questionstorm and diverstorm.   Questionstorm is a teaching and learning technique based on asking questions and generating problems. Interrogation of ideas and experiences, not memorization and reproduction of what has been taught or learnt, constitutes the measure of intelligence. Teachers provide tools and materials for learning, and students learn by applying their curiosity and inquisitiveness. Students use question to question, question to answer, referential, conditional, simple, complex, quiz-based, and other approaches to explore and understand.

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As a standalone activity, students generate a certain number of questions using a specified approach. For instance, students could be asked to generate ten referential questions in the past and ten conditional questions in the present using who, what, or where. As a result, students can use questions to generate knowledge and information about a particular subject. Instead of learning by memorization, they learn by interrogation and probing. For instance, to learn about the skeleton, the teacher need not draw the skeleton and list the parts and functions. Instead, the teacher draws the skeleton and, through asking questions, students learn about the various parts and their functions.

However, inquiry-based learning does not end in questioning ideas and experiences but also in generating new ideas and insights, in invention and innovation. The human mind is a memory box but also a facility for creative exercise. The human mind memorizes information and also manufactures ideas. Inquiry-based learning entails divergent thinking and exercise of creative ingenuity.

Diverstorm nudges students to explore and think in terms of the new, the different, and the possible. Diverstorm compels learners to generate new insights and create new products, to imagine new and other possibilities. Students are encouraged to come up with different solutions and answers. Every option implies infinite options. Every solution entails other possible solutions. Inquiry-based learning compels students to engage in divergent thinking about a given material, situation, and experience. It drives students to constantly search for the new, and to renew, recreate, and reinvent. At the primary school level, inquiry-based learning entails getting schoolers to generate fresh ideas in relation to some metrics such as size, shape, and volume. At the secondary level, students are encouraged to create alternative ways of generating power, conserving energy, controlling erosion, and reducing pollution.

Inquiry-based learning is an approach with enormous potential. It can transform the teaching and schooling process into an interrogative and innovative endeavour. Schools will become creative and innovative hubs. Learning materials will no longer be objects to be dumped on students, or materials to be memorized through repetition, but resources to be examined, explored, recreated, and reinvented.

The inquiry-based approach to learning is set to transform the school system and kick-start an educational renaissance with a global resonance.

•Igwe directs Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation