The place of oral history and palaeography in indigenous knowledge management education: Makerere University—EASLIS experience

Prof. Elisam Magara

East African School of Library and Information Science (EASLIS), Makerere University

E-mail: magarasam@gmail.com, emagara@easlis.mak.ac.ug

Accepted 10 December, 2012

Abstract

Over the years, people have applied indigenous knowledge in their day to day activities for socio-economic and community development. This has aimed at integrating IK values into the environment in which learning takes place. For this to be effective, it requires a body of knowledge, skills and competences to optimally exploit the existing IK into the Nations development programmes with information management support. This paper explains the IK in the African cultural context and the Uganda’s higher education. This paper also defines the IK management and places oral history and palaeography therein. The paper shares experience of EASLIS in addressing the IK management needs through training in Oral History and Palaeography courses. It also provides the experiences students go through in undertaking this course and also shares feedback in promoting IK education. The paper concludes that the use of oral history research is appropriately placed in IK education as a tool which when utilised will help to increase the sustainability of the learning process for lifelong learning.

Keywords: Oral History Management, Palaeography, Indigenous Knowledge Education, EASLIS, Makerere University