iarjelIARJELIARJEL2708-5120https://doi.org/10.47310/iajel.2020.v01i02.024Rethinking Decolonization of Education in Africa & the Rise of China as an Imperial Contingency: A Social Realist & Deconstructive Post-Colonialist CritiqueJosephLadu EluzaiMoggaThis paper critically re-examines the narrative of decolonization of education in Africa and questions the extent to which the supposed decolonization processes are sensitive and responsive to new forms of exploitation of Africa as may arise from new centres of global power such as China. Using Archer’s realist social theory, the study notes that African nations still by and large use colonial-era curriculum frameworks, power relations and institutional structures to enact and validate schooling for its human capital formation; suggesting decolonization processes are neither effective nor enduring. African education systems are under-utilizing local climate and culture to promote indigeneity alongside modernity mainly because the element of agency is lost in the shuffle of its elite class’s inability to accumulate meaning over the last six decades. There is need, therefore, to reclaim Africa’s humanity and subjectivity by decolonizing production of knowledge of Africa if decolonization processes are not to become a metaphor. Using Syrotinski’s deconstructive post-colonialism, the study critiques the representation of China in the post-colonial epistemic subtlety of partnerships and argues that China’s influence in Africa is primarily conditioned by the structure and culture of colonization and that China may seek greater elaboration of the same cyclical charade to look both “different and pertinent.” Chinese overtures to Africa literally constitute a contingency that affects the story of Africa’s decolonization and its outcomes by coming with a price tag of exploitation, albeit more muted and less refuted. Prudence dictates that African education systems should provide avenues to question the narrative of China-Africa cooperation from the standpoint of unequal relations that could undermine Africa’s efforts to eliminate dependence and so eventually fully decolonize. African nations need to re-think China and their education systems must provide the standpoints for doing so by widening the social base of political consciousness and action against possible neo-imperial takeover.