Can one train individuals and societies that are autonomous, responsible and useful to the development of their communities through an exogenic school? The educational work of African intellectual Joseph Ki-Zerbo approaches these major problems of ethics in education. Through the question of the meaning of the colonial school in the light of the paradigm of African development, Joseph Ki-Zerbo falls within the perspective of an ethics of educational systems that transcends the question of pedagogical methods and the role of the participants to favour a school that is fair and equitable for all. After an exegesis of the original African education, whose merit consisted in training the social man in phase with society’s needs, he presents the school inherited from the colonization as a cultural and socio-economic plague for Africa. In order to develop and build an endogenous school, the African countries must build on the values of their educational past.