Eduardo Mondlane: the lifelong learner, adult educator, and African scholar-revolutionary

Anchored on Mondlane’s biological mother’s advice that he ought to ‘go to school in order to understand the witchcraft of the white man, thus being able to fight against him’ and on the argument that what he learned as a child informed his learning as an adolescent and as an adult, this study developed a profile of Eduardo Mondlane as a lifelong learner, adult educator, and African scholar-revolutionary. The study is based on a critical documentary analysis of primary sources found in the archives of Northwestern University, Syracuse University, and Oberlin College, and corroborates the fact that most of Mondlane’s education in Western academic institutions took place during his adulthood. For instance, he completed high school already as a 27-year-old adult, began higher education in his late 20s and completed a bachelor’s degree at the age of 33, a master’s degree at the age of 36, and a Ph.D. at the age of 40. The study concludes that the trajectory of Eduardo Mondlane provides insight into the complexity and richness of the lifelong learning journey for ordinary people, especially those from communities around the globe whose education is relegated to informal, therefore inferior status.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Lifelong Education on 2023-09-03, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02601370.2023.2262152.