Towards a Trivalent Logico-Ontological Framework for African Philosophy of Higher Education and Critical Pedagogy

African philosophy of higher education is an evolving field of discourse. As a distinctively African contribution to critical pedagogy and global philosophical discourse in higher education, there is a paucity of literature for researchers to reference as a starting point to further their discourse. Much of what has been written about education so far involves the cultivation of autonomous action, moral instruction, iteration in higher pedagogy, and responsible action towards the public good or the harmonisation and promotion of collective interests. To address this paucity of research, we propose a need to rethink the African philosophy of higher education, including critical pedagogy from an alternative framework. We begin by presenting an overview of what constitutes an African philosophy of higher education in existing literature. From there, employing the method of conversational analysis, we critique the colonial foundation of higher education in Africa in its current organisation. We then deploy the same method to present a trivalent logico-ontological model of higher education as an alternative framework that can transform learners into creative, critical, and independent thinkers. We conclude by considering the potential impact of such a trivalent logico-ontological model of education on the future of African philosophy of higher education and its role in shaping critical pedagogy in and beyond Africa.