African education;: An introductory survey of education in Commonwealth countries

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SURVEY OF EDUCATION ^wmitt

ONWEALTH COUNTRIES

-'

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AFRICAN EDUCATION

AFRICAN EDUCATION AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY OF EDUCATION IN COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES

DONALD

G.

BURNS

Supervisor of Commonwealth Teachers* Courses University of Leeds

LONDON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1965

Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4 GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA CAPETOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA KUALA LUMPUR HONGKONG

Oxford University Press 1965

.

Printed

The Camelot Press

in

Great Britain by

Ltd.,

London and Southampton

135327 PREFACE This book

intended for the very large number of young Africans

is

become teachers, who wish to find out about the development of education in other African countries as well as their own. Education in any country is a process that benefits immensely from contacts with other systems partly no doubt because of the challenge which such contacts imply but more deeply because what is done in another country so often reveals new and viable emphases which might otherwise remain unexplored. The experience of Western Nigeria in opening secondary modern schools, of Ghana in using middle schools as a stepping-stone to the grammar school or of Tanganyika and Swaziland in organising A-level centres are typical of developments which teachers in any Commonwealth country in Africa will surely find of interest. Indeed, some knowledge of how

now

training to

education

is

developing in other African countries

a matter of passing interest, for

the national context or not,

it

whether

can hardly

it

is

fail to

is

far

more than

directly relevant to

illuminate aspects of

educational development such as the devolution of authority from

the centre, a

new

pattern of post-primary education or plans for

the revision of teacher-training which are the concern of

This

is

a period, too,

when

all.

opportunities for educational planning

on a national scale are greater than at any time in the past, and the pace of educational development is likely to be correspondingly rapid, both reasons why it seems particularly important that a knowledge of what other countries are planning to do should be much more readily available than

There

are

it is

at present.

moreover impelling

Commonwealth country is in a all Commonwealth countries in of

life

to

social reasons,

why education in one

sense the concern of every other

;

for

way community

Africa are seeking to adjust their

changing circumstances and have discovered a

which readily bridges the distance between or Accra and Dar es Salaam. For a variety of reasons then, it seemed that there w as an evident need for a book which would attempt to summarize current educational developments in Africa and interpret them as far as one may, on the basis of the scattered materials at present available and some limited personal experience. I have drawn heavily on the Annual of interest in so doing

Kano and

Nairobi,

Kampala and Lusaka

T

.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

VI

Reports of Ministries and Departments of Education in compiling the tables which appear in the text, a practice which occasionally

has embarrassing consequences, for some of the figures years or

more out

once

am

I

educational

may be two

of date by the time they appear here and

more than

may appear to have underestimated the pace of development. Nor has it been possible to take complete

sure

I

account of more recent developments, such as the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in the State of Tanzania, but some have been included at the end of chapters and are indicated in the text by f

A further limitation,

and

this a self-imposed one, is that references

throughout to the education available to Africans since, at a time when racial systems are being integrated in all Commonwealth countries, systems of education provided by Africans must become the national system of African countries if they are not already in the text are

so. I

should particularly

like to

thank colleagues and friends

kindly read various chapters of this book in manuscript and

many

valuable comments.

though

I

may

I

know

I

have profited from

not always have done so in the

way they

all

who made

of these

intended, and

for omissions or misinterpretations in the text, I alone

am

respon-

sible.

Supervisor of April 1964

Donald G. Burns Commonwealth Teachers' Courses, University of Leeds.

CONTENTS PREFACE 1.

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION

IN AFRICA

i

The behavioural custom and change in African communities development of African children Priorities in an educational proSocial

•

•

gramme 2.

References.

•

EDUCATION

THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

IN

22

Organization and length of the course Primary education as an autonomous stage Aims in primary education Pre-primary training Curricula in the lower primary school and upper primary classes Number of children in primary schools Wastage 'Repeating' and automatic promotion Streaming by ability Maintaining standards in the primary school References. •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

3.

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

51

secondary school The break between primary and secondary education Types of secondary school The argument for comprehensive schools The curriculum Priority for secondary education Enrolments in secondary grammar schools Enrolments in modern and middle schools Selection for secondary education Examinations in secondary schools The school and society References.

Aims and purpose

in the

•

•

•

•

•

•

4.

FURTHER EDUCATION

88

Technical education in trade centres Technical institutes Vocational training Training for agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry Further education for its own sake Literacy campaigns The need for a comprehensive programme References. Definition

Priorities

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

5.

•

EDUCATION

THE UNIVERSITY

IN

New

117

universities in Africa Autonomy or state control The role of the university in Africa Programmes of special significance Priorities in subjects of study Technological studies The Nigerian Universities Commission The federal university Subjects and courses of study Entrance qualifications Staffing universities in Africa Expansion of university education The immediate future References. •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

6.

•

TRAINING THE TEACHERS Who trains the teachers? The size

145

of training colleges Teaching as an emergent profession The teaching qualification Training programmes The role of the Institute of Education The reorganization of training longer course of training Training teachers for secondary schools Teacher-training in perspective References. •

•

•

•

A

•

•

•

•

7.

CONTROL AND DIRECTION The

168

pattern of administration The inspectorate Local education authorities Role of the advisory council School management The voluntary agencies Educational finances References. •

•

8.

•

PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND FUTURE NEEDS

201

INDEX

209

1

The

Social Determinants of Education in Africa

Ix

all

parts of Africa today, education

is

in the front line, so to speak,

of national planning, for the future of even* independent country

depends more than anything else on the rapid and effective developof its system of education. Hopes of achieving higher standards of living and even of establishing independence in a viable form seem to depend almost directly upon the ability of each country to train the men and women it requires for service at all levels in the administration. Education has accordingly become a major concern of even" independent country in Africa, and the expenditure which each now incurs on this account is some indication of the importance which it assumes in national planning. Many Commonwealth countries in Africa spend nearly one-fifth of their total income on education, and in all of them expenditure on education is tending to rise rapidly. Education is a social science, however, and while the pace of development may be quickened in any country bv the amount of money invested in it, its character is determined in other ways by traditions and customs, by the rate and direction of social change and of course, by the assumptions made about children's growth and development; in this context, the financial support which an educational programme can attract becomes significant because by determining how much education can be paid for, it may often determine also which aspects of the programme can be given priority. Social custom, the rate and direction of social change and finance may accordingly be said to be major determinants in the development of any educational programme. There is no need to describe here the social changes which have taken place in the past ten years in the countries of middle .Africa, nor perhaps is this possible. Some reference to the character of the changes that have been taking place seems essential, however, if only to show what the present responsibilities of the school in an African community may be, and how rapidly new responsibilities may

ment

—

AFRICAN EDUCATION

2

devolve upon it. Several examples have accordingly been selected and described to show the kind of social readjustment which many African communities are now having to make, though these are not put forward as being in any sense typical of life in other communities the traditions and customs described are those of particular tribes and communities and are peculiar to them. Again, there appear to be good grounds for re-examining the evidence presented in several inquiries bearing on the behavioural development of African children and the conclusions which have been based on them, and for drawing attention also to other evidence which shows how far pupils' performance in school may be influenced by improvements in their social and economic background. The reasons which may be urged in support of these views have likewise been set out. Finally, the urge towards self-sufficiency has caused all countries

in Africa to give special emphasis to education at one or

that development today

is

no longer

gone before accordingly, some account of the ;

Commonwealth

countries

at

further expansion of education,

two

levels so

what has which most

a linear expansion of

present

seemed

priorities

recognize

in

to be a useful

planning the

and indeed a

necessary preliminary to any survey of current educational develop-

ment. It is, then, with aspects of social custom and change in African communities, references to the behavioural development of African

children and the priorities which most

now

Commonwealth

countries

recognize in their plans for the immediate future, that this

chapter

is

concerned.

SOCIAL CUSTOM AND CHANGE IN AFRICAN COMMUNITIES

Many

of the social issues with which Africans are concerned today from the adjustments they have to make to a western way of living rather than from differences between one African culture and another. There is, for example, a striking similarity in the objections which have been raised by parents against the education of girls in areas as widely separated as Northern Nigeria, Uganda and the West Cameroons, objections which derive almost entirely from the changes to which it is believed this education will lead rather than from any traditions which these areas might share. It is claimed that schooling makes girls discontented and immoral, that girls who have been to school are less willing to undertake heavy labour in the fields, that there are no women teachers in the schools and that there is a real arise

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA moral danger to adolescent

girls in

3

mixed schools with male teachers

and where the custom of bride-wealth

is

strong, parents

commonly

prefer marriage rather than schooling for their daughters. 1 to change or adjust to a new set of values is felt least of no doubt, by those communities which are still able to live largely on a subsistence economy, like the Ndembu of Mwinilunga (Zambia)

The need

all,

Yao 3

of southern Malawi ten years or more ago; or again the nomadic groups of the Masai, where the kind of life to which a young or the

man

woman

be determined quite specificAmong the Masai, males pass through three grades in their life-time boyhood, warriorhood and elderhood and a similar system exists for females who pass through the stages of girl, sweetheart and married woman. Entrance into the age-system and membership of a specific age-group formally begins at about the age of 14-16 years and as soon as the young man is initiated into the age-group, he is permitted and expected to show the vigorous and virile qualities of a junior warrior. Once he has ally

or

by the

aspires

is still

likely to

social attitudes of his tribe or family.

—

—

become

a fully integrated

and practising member of the group,

'his

and actions towards members of other age-groups is predictable and a place in the total social system is assured to him'. Although households join together in the erection and maintenance of a common cattle kraal, the basic residential unit among the Masai remains the individual family and it is perhaps this lack of organized political behaviour, and a nomadic way of life, that has allowed social relations with his age-mates are clearly defined, his behaviour

structures such as the age-group to continue to be observed so strictly. 4

In a subsistence society, moreover, the responsibilities of both sexes are usually fairly specifically defined. Turner, in his account of

the

Lunda-Ndembu, 2

tree-felling

notes that

and clearing and burning the undergrowth are the work of men

while planting, weeding and harvesting, save for cassava which

by both

sexes, are

women's work.

.

.

.

is

planted

Agricultural production, then,

is

pronouncedly individualistic in character. Collective working-parties do take place but they are brief and sporadic and performed for individuals. There is no concept of a joint estate, worked collectively by a village or lineage-segment, the produce of which is owned in common. Men and women own their own gardens and spouses have no rights in one another's gardens. Today, when the surpluses of subsistence crops are sold for cash, and when, in some areas, newly introduced crops such as rice are grown solely for the cash they bring in, husband and wife retain for their .

.

.

.

.

.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

4 separate use the

money obtained from

When my

the sale of

all

their respective

attempted to collect family budgets we found that spouses never pooled their incomes and that few of them knew how much cash the partners had obtained (pp. 22-23). produce.

wife and

I

Again, In the total agricultural system, from the clearing of gardens to the cooking women play a much more important role than men. Men work in short spectacular bouts of energy the regular patient labour of the women in hoeing up mounds, weeding, digging up roots, soaking, carrying, drying, pounding and sifting and finally in cooking the cassava mush provides the of food,

;

steady sustenance of the group.

.

.

.

men is not regarded by Ndembu as being merely ancillary or peripheral to that of the women. The men have a role in the productive system which is autonomous and from which women are debarred not merely by its inherent dangers and Nevertheless the overall productive role of

difficulties

but in addition by a number of

of hunter (Turner, op.

cit.,

ritual taboos.

This role

is

that

pp. 24-25).

In more settled communities, concessions seem to have been made new ways of living, usually because the control of the group over its members has been weakened by economic pressures the opporto

—

tunity to

work

for a

wage

the village. Yet tradition

employment away from may continue to exercise a strong and

or to obtain paid

sometimes unsuspected influence over the behaviour of the individual, and in rural areas, the home is still the place where the young boy or girl acquires those attitudes which will in very large measure determine his behaviour in later life. In Buganda, for example, when the

young

child

weaned

is

(often not before three years of age), a

change occurs in his behaviour as he is separated from his mother and learns to adopt the silent and submissive attitude required startling

of children in the presence of adults. 5

In such communities, schooling

is

probably thought of by the

parents as a useful investment. In one group of 300 parents (also in

Buganda), a majority considered education to be an economic investment which would enable either their sons to obtain lucrative jobs (and so supplement the family income from the land) or their daughters to bring a higher bride-wealth on marriage: for 'In both Teso and West Nile, bride-wealth can go as high as 150 head of cattle and 50 goats.' Some parents recognize that a family whose children had been educated achieved a higher social status in the community and considered this a sufficient reason for sending their children to school

;

a

few pointed out that

at a

time when traditional

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA

5

cultures were being uprooted with hardly any time to adjust to alien

modes

knows best what the child needs nowadays'. two of these parents had also been persuaded to send their children to school or intimidated by some authority, either the teacher, the headman or a friend. 6 This is no doubt a common enough point of view in most rural communities: Turner in his account of the Lunda-Ndembu, observes that 'there were several boys in the village who had passed Standard II at the local mission out-school and required money for their boarding fees at the Middle school at Kalene Mission. From Kalene they might go on to Mutanda School at Solwezi where, if they passed Standard VI, they would obtain a qualification for the lucrative job of clerk. Then they would be in a position to help their elders with money' (pp. 114-15). 2 Again the vigorous role which women play in societies such as the Ndembu seems to have been greatly attenuated in some of the rural societies where subsistence has been largely replaced by cash incomes. In Buganda, for example, 'Most of the girls keep very much to their mothers or girl friends and conversation usually centres around the day's events, beer, food, dress, children and gossip about other people in general. In a negligible number of homes, one finds newspapers, magazines, toys, books and even the radio. The culturegap between the home and the school is thus complete: it is a fair observation that the average home does nothing to supplement and

One

of thought, 'school

or

.

.

.

.

much

.

.

to neutralize the education given in the schools' (Maleche,

Education of Women in Uganda.) 1 The low proportion of girls enrolled in primary schools in other parts of Africa where a subsistence

economy has been replaced by cash incomes may be

a reflection of

similar social attitudes. It is in urban areas, however, that traditional ways appear to have changed most and it is here that one gets a clearer glimpse, perhaps, of the kind of adjustment which African societies may be obliged to make under the full impact of a cash economy and a western scale of values. In Lagos, for example, where from 76 per cent, to 90 per cent, of the population in some districts are Yoruba, family life has grown out of a traditional pattern of residence in which sons and grandsons

of the

man who

established a

common

dwelling live together with

and dependents. In such a family, 'marriages, funerals, disputes, the upkeep of their home, the care of the sick or infirm, the education of children and the place of its members in the community were the common concern of the whole group. It

their wives, children

recognized the authority of a single head, the status of each

member

AFRICAN EDUCATION

6

within

it

being defined by his seniority.

The terms used

for family

same way the predominance of a group merging particular relationships in broader

relationships emphasize in the

over the individual,

categories' (Marris, p. 16). 7 Despite the strong hierarchical

tendency however, in the town of Lagos (on which Marris based his inquiry) there now seem to be very few houses owned in common and entirely occupied by one family and almost 40 per cent, of the households participating in Marris' inquiry comprised only one man and his wife or wives with their unmarried children. Despite these structural changes many of the characteristic

in

Yoruba

social structures,

attitudes of traditional family

life persist: there is, for example, a remarkable degree of cohesion within the family depending less on the strength of particular relationships than on the mutual affection

and sense of obligation of

members

all its

to the whole.

'On Sunday,

know we we do not wait to be invited. If I son may come, let us say, or a cousin.

the family will come,' said a prosperous shoemaker, 'you

Yoruba

are not like white people,

have a brother in Abeokuta, his

So

in the afternoon, there

Coca-Cola for the children. they will help us

remember

fried

never forget

still

for an aged person,

when we are old and when you die, who did this or that for them. That

it'

them and

(Marris, op.

Again, though each household folk

yam, beer

because of our belief that in this way

their uncle

are careful never to offend will

is

It is

cit.,

all

them

why we

like that so that

they

p. 29).

now

care for each other's sons

cannot afford to maintain

treat

they will is

tends to live separately, kins-

and daughters. Tf the parents

their children, a brother, sister or cousin

may take charge of them; even when the parents are not in need, they may do so as a gesture of goodwill. Old people also like to have some of their grandchildren around to help with the housework, a wish

which the parents could not ignore without giving offence. So children are likely now to spend more of their childhood away from home' (ibid., p. 56).

The major influence in bringing about changes in the pattern of life among Yoruba people in a town like Lagos seems, however, to be the effective demand from many of the women for status family

on the western pattern. Nine out of ten wives of the householders interviewed in central Lagos were working, a majority of the remainder were engaged in some kind of trade and a wife's profit from her trade is apparently her own to spend either on her personal needs, her children or in helping her relatives. 'Husbands and wives seldom know accurately and do not expect to know what each other earns and

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA the wife

is

J

not obliged to contribute to the housekeeping out of her

income even though she may earn more than her husband.' Indeed, 'a

woman may now look On the

different kinds.

for

new

safeguards in marriage of radically

one hand, she

may

try to secure greater

personal independence of her husband through trade, or,

educated, a career.

On

the other hand, she

may

if

she

is

seek a relationship

with her husband in which both are bound to ideals of loyalty and affection to support each other p. 55).

Almost

come what may' 7

(Marris, op.

cit.,

certainly the spread of education will strengthen the

second of these tendencies and with it, the preference of women for married life on the western pattern. This search for personal happiness rather than the interests of parents, family or clan, is likely to have a significant influence on parents' attitudes towards their children. Omari 8 reports that a majority of a group of students in secondary schools and training colleges in Ghana (95 per cent.) stated their preference for bringing up their own children rather than depending upon uncles or other relatives in traditional fashion, and in Lagos, too, the separation of young children from their parents is now beginning to be questioned. 'Educated parents in particular often prefer to bring up their own children; they worry whether in matters of discipline, diet or the emotional needs of their children, grandparents or other relatives will treat their children as they believe right.' 7 Such examples suggest that traditional social structures and attitudes may be rapidly modified in an urban area by the incorporation of western status-values and behaviour patterns. Even so, this is probably a selective process for in Lagos a good deal that is typical of social life among the Yoruba has been retained and there has certainly not been any wholesale abandonment of traditional values. 9

The major changes which seem

to be indicated by these examples from the fairly rapid replacement of a subsistence economy by one based on cash values, and from the challenges to established authority to which this leads. In rural areas,

are apparently those arising

community may be challenged by the conditions of paid employment, the influence of the

the authority of traditional leaders in the

men

man with money, while the and complementary roles of the sexes may be disturbed by a system in which men and women may be employed indiscriminately. In such communities, some basis must evidently be found for establishing a working synthesis of the two sets of values which are older

established

being set aside by the young

AFRICAN EDUCATION

8

represented by African traditions on the one hand and a western style of

economy on the

other.

A close parallel to this conflict in values is to be found, of course, in the conflict between the authority of the tribe or local

community and

the authority of the central government.

Where no common ground has been may easily occur. At the worst, this may

established, disagreements

lead to open dispute, as in

the incidents which preceded the resettlement of the

Gwembe-

on the Kariba dam. 10 In others, both explicitly recognized, and so one finds among the standards may be Tiv people moots which administer justice between groups and between individuals and their groups (except in the case of violence) but courts which are concerned with disputes between social groups or between individuals. 11 In many communities the school is accordingly an institution of special significance because it is the one where the two traditions are most likely to meet and so has responsibilities which may go well beyond its responsibility to give instruction. Its responsibility to train children in a set of moral values by which they may direct their behaviour at least through the formative years of childhood and adolescence is clear; but in societies where social attitudes are changing with great rapidity (like some of those mentioned above), it can probably only hope to achieve this moral purpose if it can indicate some of the values which are common to both. Such a synthesis needs to be established not only at the moral level but between the practices of a traditional way of life limited to a subsistence economy and the demands of a wage-earning society, and similarly between authority on a tribal basis and authority deriving from national sovereignty. The following is a simple example of the kind of issue which the teacher in a rural area may

Tonga

to allow

work

to begin

face frequently: I

became head of a new middle school

in 1958, a well-organized school

enjoying good relations with the local people and the community.

We

had

meetings with the local people and the community. We had meetings for sports and games, village cleanliness committees, a volunteers' campaign and all these bodies worked very successfully. Before the end of the year, just a day before the school was due to sit for terminal examinations, the old mother of the village

headman

given a letter saying that

at least

miles

away

to

died;

it

was about 9.0 p.m. when

I

was

ten boys were needed to go about eight

inform relatives of the death (my school was a boarding

school) and that on the next day (the day of the examination) there should

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA be no school so that

all

boys could help with the

activities at the

Q

headman's

house. I would not allow the boys to go so far away at would ask the staff to allow the boys to help with the activities on the morrow and this we did. I was called to the village elders and was asked why I had rejected the headman's instructions. The elders were very angry with me but I took it very slowly and politely and tried to explain the responsibility which we have taken from parents for their children when they are at school and also that our work was planned to finish at a certain time of the year. One by one these old men were convinced by my words (Privately communicated by the head teacher of a primary school in Tanganyika).

I told

the messenger that

night but

The

I

school's responsibility

societies for

it

is

not likely to be any less in urban

cannot be assumed that the majority of children will

come

to school with their minds firmly set to a particular pattern of moral values or social standards. In urban as in rural communities, then, it may be important for the school to show that what it offers as

'education'

is

directly

related

to

values

which are known and is the most com-

respected in the community, and this, of course, pelling reason

why what

the school teaches should refer as directly as

possible to the realities of

life

in

an African community.

THE BEHAVIOURAL DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICAN CHILDREN Most of the school and college examinations which have commonly provided a basis for judgements about the attainments of African children, have been devised on assumptions which are true for societies. In so far as they reflect a background European rather than African, consistent differences must accordingly be expected to emerge between African and European children due to differences in the children's background. Some of these do not appear to be different in kind from those noted by Vernon in his inquiry into methods of secondary selection in Jamaica: 12 'in the pre-school years for example there is plenty of maternal and other female affection but very frequent absence of a stable and respected father figure, also a notable lack of encouragement of independence. Both by tradition and for reasons of extreme poverty, people do not work readily towards long-term goals'. Again, 'rural and slum families are seldom able to provide any toys. At least one-third of the parents are barely literate so that there is little stimulus to the development of ideas or symbolic thinking and what development there is takes place in a different language medium from that which will be used for school learning.'

western or European

which

is

.

.

.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

IO

In school, 'such education as (the pupil) receives very negation of what

ment

.

.

since this

.

is

is

too often the

desirable for promoting intellectual develop-

and mental activity are repressed which most teachers (who have them-

his needs for physical is

the only

way

in

been brought up in the system) can handle over-large classes. Learning is regarded as getting the right answer through mechanical drill, not as finding out something by one's own efforts' (Vernon, op. cit., p. 47). Though it would be difficult to say how far these conditions are true of any community in Africa (for such inquiries have yet to be undertaken), parallels for most of the features of family life noted by Vernon can certainly be found in some parts the lack of a stable father-figure for example (in Malawi where many men migrate to Zambia), the inability to work towards long-term selves

—

where the economy functions at subsistence among parents (many of the parents are illiterate even in countries like Ghana or Western Nigeria where primary education is free) and almost generally, the fact that African children develop their ideas in a language medium which is different from the medium most commonly used in school. The specific effects which such differences in upbringing between European and non-European children may have on educational performances are well exemplified in an investigation carried out by McFie into the performance of African boys over a period of two years' training in a technical school in Uganda. 13 In verbal tests (comprehension, similarities and arithmetic), there were no differences in the replies made by these boys which would distinguish them from English subjects; in non-language tests, however, there were marked differences in the attitude of the African boys both towards the test material and towards the importance of orientation and speed. Only four out of twenty-six copied any of the designs which they were shown quickly enough to earn time credits and fifteen rotated one or more of their constructions through at least fortygoals (notably in areas level),

the extent of illiteracy

;

degrees in relation to the orientation of the original. Indeed, one drawing was completely inverted in comparison with the original and one pupil sat at an angle to the table at which he was doing the test.

five

Such

difficulties

may have been due

to limitations in the earlier

education of these boys, either because they had had few opportunities as children of playing with bricks or mechanical toys or again because

they had not been exposed to a culture which demanded accurate orientation and imitation. In any event,

McFie provided

extra train-

ing in which special emphasis was placed on drawing and design

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA construction and

when

II

the students were re-examined after two

them showed a marked improvement and accuracy in the non-verbal tests. Their scores on verbal tests were little changed and so it seemed unlikely that this improvement in non-language material could be attributed to any increase in general maturity. McFie concluded that much of the improvement could be attributed to the further training in attitudes and specific skills which he provided. Evidence of this kind clearly suggests the need for a special emphasis on representational and constructional tasks in the general years' further education, all of

in speed

education of African children, simply because the conceptual patterns

which pupils need if they are to handle such tasks easily and fluently will often remain undeveloped as long as constructional toys and other 'geometrical' problems do not occur in their environment. Indeed in some African cultures, virtually the only geometrical shape with which children may be familiar is the circle. According to Allport and Pettigrew, for example, Zulu culture is probably the most spherical or circular of all Bantu cultures. 'Huts are invariably round (rondavels) or else beehive-shaped whereas in other Bantu tribes, they are sometimes square or rectangular. Round huts arranged in a circular form with round stockades to fence in animals, constitute a typical African homestead (kraal). Fields follow the irregular contours of the rolling land and never seem to be laid out in the neat rectangular plots so characteristic of western culture.

The

Zulu hut has no windows and no word for such an aperture exists. In the more primitive grass huts, doors are merely round entrance holes in the round mud huts doors are amorphous, seldom if every neatly rectangular. Cooking pots are round or gourd shaped. ... It is commonly said in Natal that Zulus fresh from the reserves cannot plough a straight furrow and are unable to lay out a rectangular flower bed. Such inability is of course overcome with experience and training but the initial defect would seem clearly related to the circularity that is characteristic of life on the reserves and to the lack typical

;

of familiarity with straight layouts.' 14

Again, there

is

some evidence

to suggest that

many

Africans, like

and centripetal groups elsewhere, are handicapped by their limited experience in perceiving groups of visual materials as a whole. Hudson 15 has shown, for example, that the conventional clues of depth perception in pictures (the relative size of objects, the overlapping of one object by another and perspective) tend to be ignored by Africans who have had little or no school education. In the drawing isolated

AFRICAN EDUCATION

12

reproduced below, the elephant

human figure and an antelope, is

is

is

positioned centrally between a

drawn smaller and

given by the two lines representing a road.

the

man

doing?'

the answer

is

and 'Which

is

is

asked 'What

is

nearer the man, elephant or antelope?'

generally that he

and that the elephant

a clue to distance

When

is

throwing his spear

at the elephant

nearer to him.

Three-dimensional interpretations are given more frequently by at the end of the primary school course than at the beginning; 'far fewer of the African primary school children do so and some difference tends to persist through high school and even up to graduate level'. Hudson noted, for example, that some African graduate teachers did not reply immediately to the question 'Which is nearer to the man, elephant or antelope?' because they said they were uncertain whether to give a topological or a projective response. 'It seems indeed as if African children's exposure to pictorial materials

European children

is

not sufficient to establish the appropriate perceptual responses to

the point of habit, as occurs in normal European groups' (Biesheuvel, 15 The evidence obtained by Allport and Pettigrew when showing a trapezoidal window-frame to various groups of Zulus and European children also accords with this. Though virtually as many primitive Zulus reported the illusion as urban Zulus or Europeans, under marginal conditions the investigators found that children with experience of western culture were more likely to perceive the illusion. Such examples suggest that many African children must be handicapped in a European-style education by their lack of experience or familiarity with conceptual patterns such as are generally familiar to all European children by the end of the primary school, and they emphasize the need for research into the achievement-standards of representative groups of African children. There is, indeed, astonishingly little information on the behavioural development of children at different ages in African communities. 16 In some African societies, at least, children are consistently ahead of

p. 347).

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA

13

Baganda children it European child in their ability to sit up, crawl and manipulate cubes 17 and seem to retain this advantage until at least the end of the third year, and as African children are generally ahead of European children at birth in skeletal European children

in

development

at birth;

appears, are well ahead of the average

ossification, 18

The

full

tion have

The

such differences probably have a maturational

basis.

extent of these differences and their implications for educastill

to

be defined.

evidence from these various inquiries seems to suggest the

need for a 'children's charter' in which the main clauses would be and stable background such as is provided by family life; (b) a general rise in standards of living is that (a) every child needs a secure

desirable because

from instruction

it

would

greatly increase the child's ability to profit

in school; (c) schools should provide a

much wider

range of stimuli to intellectual development than has been thought is needed in the spirit and tempo of formal education, the incentive for which (since it can hardly come from teachers in village schools) is the responsibility of the

necessary in the past; (d) a radical change

leaders of public opinion.

There seems, indeed, to be no reason why many more children in African communities should not reach appreciably higher levels of attainment if standards of living can be improved and more appropriate forms of education made available. Such a general rise in all

number of important consequences in the planning of school programmes, of which the most immediate would standards could have a

no doubt be

a reduction in the length

PRIORITIES IN AN EDUCATIONAL

and cost of schooling.

PROGRAMME

In any independent country the aims of the programme for education

must be determined by what

are believed to be the national needs. In

may be assumed

to include (a) the need to primary stage because of the nation's moral responsibility for young people and the need to create a national image and identity, (b) the need to train many more teachers, and (c) the need to provide education for the benefit of an adult population many of whom may be illiterate. To these general objectives many countries would like to add the provision of training (a) for administrators and technicians, (b) for the men and women who would be suitable for entry to one of the professions, and (c) of a vocational kind for people with no education beyond the primary

African countries, these

provide universal education

school.

at the

AFRICAN EDUCATION

14

Probably no country in the world can pay for all the education it like, and though most countries in Africa are already spending a substantial proportion of their total income on education, if their programmes are consistently developed according to such a plan as was outlined at the Unesco Conference of African States in 1961 they are likely to find their expenditure on education in 1965 half as large

would

again as

it

was

in 1961

and

times as large in 1980.

five

Nor can

the

most countries without a massive programme of external aid, which would rise from some ^50 million in 1961 to £150 million in 1965 and £300 million in 19 There is no country in Africa which is not obliged to scrutinize 1970. already one of the its expenditure on education most carefully largest items in the public sector and to reduce some portions of the minimum programme which it considers necessary. Of the four major areas of development primary, secondary, higher and adult education, primary education appears to be a natural priority, for it seems to be a necessary condition of democratic government and of all education at higher levels. Even so, there are a number of countries in Africa where it has been made clear that universal primary education can no longer be the first priority and that in the national interest, the development of secondary or even higher education is more urgent. 'The shortage of trained manobjectives of such a plan be achieved in

—

—

—

power,' said Sir Lindsay-Keir at the opening of the Royal College of

East Africa in 1956, 'is by common consent most acute at the subprofessional, supervisory and technician grades;' and this seems to

be equally true in some parts of West Africa. Harbison 20 in his projection of the

numbers of

high-level

and intermediate

level

personnel needed in Nigeria during the next ten years, estimated that a fivefold increase of personnel would be needed in the senior grades in agriculture but a tenfold increase in the intermediate ones; in manufacturing, he estimated that a fourfold increase would be necessary in the number of high-level executives and a sixfold increase in that of technicians.

number

From these

estimates he concluded that whereas

would need doubled during the next ten years, the number of personnel in intermediate grades would need to be raised by three and a half

the

of personnel in senior grades in Nigeria

to be

times. It is no matter for surprise, then, that secondary education should be given a high priority in one development plan after another. In

Ghana

was given an over-riding Second Development Plan, 21 receiving £15 million

for example, secondary education

priority in the

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA

15

out of a total Plan expenditure on education of nearly £29* million; in the

Nigeria,

Federal

Government Development Plan (1962-8) 22

gives highest priority to the establishment of national high schools in

each of the Regions (each to accommodate some 570 pupils) and secondary schools in the Development Plans 23 of the Eastern and

Western Regions

also

rank high in the

list

of priorities. In the Eastern

Region, the expansion of secondary education (three schools to be

expanded

to receive

two or three streams of pupils) receives the Western

largest grant after the University of Nigeria, while in the

Region the expansion of secondary schools (especially sixth forms) £2-3 million out of a total Plan expenditure on education of £12-7 million. In Tanganyika too, an over-riding priority has been given to secondary education 'the Government considers that at this stage of the country's development, the greatest need is for a considerable expansion of secondary education. The Ministry's plans will in four years increase the number of School Certificate candidates nearly threefold (from 1,202 in i960 to 3,275 in 1964) and will in the same period increase the number of Higher School Certificate candidates almost sixfold (from no in i960 to 620 in 1964). This means that the central government will be unable to give subventions towards more than 400-500 additional (primary) classes a year and that further expansion will depend on the extent to which local authorities are ready and able to increase their own contributions to primary education' {Development Plan for Tanganyika, 1961-64^ p. 79). The main projects to be developed in the period of the Plan are accordingly secondary schools (one-half of the total Plan expenditure on education), primary education (£510,000), higher education receives the largest grant after Ife University

—

;

.

.

.

.

.

.

(the University College receives £850,000), teacher training colleges

(£244,000) and the expansion of technical training (£128,000). In Zambia, expenditure on secondary education during the period

1961-5 25 is expected to total £2,450,000 on primary education and £263,000 on technical and further education; and in Malawi, the number of School Certificate entrants are to be increased to 450 a year by a grant of of the Development Plan,

against £1,515,000

*

The

other priorities in the Second Development Plan for

Ghana were

the

universities (£2^- million each), technical education (£2 million), teacher training (£2-7 million) and primary /middle schools (£1 '9 million) and it seems probable

on the fuller development of education at the secondary stage will be strengthened during the Seven Year Plan (for the period up to 1970) for a heavy expenditure must be foreseen in the post-basic secondary schools which will progressively replace existing middle schools.

that the emphasis

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l6

£900,000 (Development Plan, ig62~5), 28 the other

priorities

being the

University College (£500,000), increased facilities for commercial and technical training (and mass education) (£445,000), a teacher college

training

(£120,000) and scholarships for study overseas

(£170,000). One of the consequences of this rapid expansion of secondary

education has been that most

Commonwealth

countries

now

feel the

need for a temporary restraint on the expansion of the provision for primary education, though universal, free and compulsory primary education remains an objective in its own right. This need was explicitly recognized at the Conference of African States in Addis Ababa: 'Although all countries accepted the aim of bringing about universal, free and compulsory primary education which Unesco is required to promote under the terms of the Universal Declaration of

Human

Rights, a

number

of representatives considered that universal

primary education of that kind is not the first priority in their countries but that the development of secondary or even higher education 27 is more urgent' (Final Report, Chapter V, p. 37). Every country also recognizes the need to provide education at the highest level in universities.

Though

the total

number

of students in

—

be small according to the Unesco Plan, it is not likely to rise above some 2 per cent, of the age-group by 1980 the cost of education at this level is extremely high and

these institutions

is

likely to

—

according to estimates presented to the Conference of African States at

Addis Ababa, the education of even 2 per

cent, of the age-group at

may amount to as much as one-fifth of the total education Even so, no Commonwealth country in Africa has felt it

this stage

budget.

could refuse to face the heavy expenditure which the provision of education

at the highest level

must

entail.

A further commitment which is of special importance in the field of higher education

many

of those

is

now

the training of teachers, since in

many develop—the crucial —has been delayed by shortage of teachers able teach

expansion of secondary schools

ment plans

some countries

serving in primary schools are untrained and the level in

a

to

pupils in the lower secondary classes. Considerable increases in the facilities for

the training of teachers have accordingly been envisaged

in all the countries of

middle Africa, principally to provide more

teachers for service in primary schools and the lower forms of

secondary schools, but also to provide training in smaller numbers for teachers of technical, commercial and other practical subjects. Finally, one of the consequences of a comprehensive programme

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA

17

which

is directed towards universal education at the primary level should be the eventual disappearance of that old and most intractable adult illiteracy, for as the proportion of children enof problems

—

primary schools rises in all countries, it is reasonable to hope that within one or two generations at most, there will be few rolled in the

adults who have not spent four years or more at school. If this could be achieved, the need to teach basic skills to adults would largely disappear, though there would be a continuing need for opportunities for further education of a wider and more liberal kind. In the interim period, most countries have voted funds for programmes of mass education or community development; in Tanganyika for example, the Development Plan for 1961-4 makes provision for ^230,000 over three years for community development schemes, one of the aims of which will be 'to eradicate illiteracy by mass campaigns' (Development Plan, p. 92), 24 in the Western Region of Nigeria, £3 million was allocated to a programme of integrated rural development because 'not only does the Government attach great importance to the physical and material achievements of community development, it also attaches equal importance to its social and political effects' (Development Plan for Western Nigeria, ig62-8, p. 41) 23 and a similar provision is made in the Development Plans of most other Common-

wealth countries.

How

then can the various claims of primary, secondary, adult and

higher education be harmonized in a single plan?

One answer

is

suggested by the Report of the Conference of African States on the

development of education in Africa. This Conference was convened 1 96 1 'with a view to establishing an inventory of educational needs and a programme to meet these needs in the coming years' (Final Report, Introduction). 28 The principal assumptions in the Final Report were that (a) all countries should aim at providing fee-free primary education, lasting six years, for all children of school-age by 1980, (b) that 30 per cent, of all primary school pupils would find in

places in schools at the secondary level (either secondary schools, training colleges or schools with a technical or vocational bias), (c)

that for

most children education

three years, provision being

made

secondary level would for one-third to complete a at the

six-year course in the secondary school,

and last full

and one-sixth of those taking

other forms of post-primary education to continue their training for six years.

assumed

Of

the pupils

who complete

that 20 per cent, will go

on

secondary education,

assumes that school wastage during the

six

and

it

is

one years of secondary

to higher education,

if

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l8

education will not exceed 15 per cent, this means that approximately 2 per cent, of the age-group may expect to obtain places in universities or institutions of similar rank.

According to the Report,

it

should be possible to develop a com-

prehensive programme of these proportions (including universal primary education) within fifteen years at an annual cost five times as great (in 1980) as the bill for education in 1961.

commitment may

well appear unrealistic and

Though such

resources today, this cannot be considered improbable

made

a

beyond any country's if

allowance

some countries, the substantial expansion which may be expected in the economy of all African countries over the next fifteen years and the increasing is

for the rapid progress already achieved in

readiness of countries in other continents to give help. It must be planned however in such a way that present shortages do not develop into bottlenecks that block further expansion and the Conference accordingly agreed that for the short term (1961-6):

(a)

Each country should aim to increase enrolment each year for primary education by an additional 5 per cent, of the beginning age-group.

(b)

The main emphasis should level education

fall on the expansion of secondwhich produces the specialized manpower basic

economic development, the cadres for the higher education and the teachers to instruct the new millions of primary school pupils. Higher education should be expanded proportionate to the needs of the secondary school programmes. In view of the high rate of illiteracy and the insufficiency of schools, the African States should accord special importance to adult education and the activities of youth (principally adult literacy and mass education programmes). (See Outline of a Plan for African Educational Development, chapter IV, pp. to

institutions

(c)

(d)

12-13). 19

In

all

countries, then, the expansion of secondary schools, the

extension of training colleges for teachers, and the provision of universities

and other

in the present

primary

level.

institutions for higher education take priority

planning period over the expansion of schooling at the It is true that primary education continues to claim the

biggest share of expenditure on education because are so great, but virtually

all

new expenditure

its

recurrent costs

in the

Development

Plans for the period up to 1965/6 has been allocated to those forms of

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA education on which the development of a comprehensive system

19

now

seems to depend.

Some

of the ways in

work

earlier affect the

which

social

changes of the kind described

of the school are already evident. In

com-

munities where social change has been rapid and a western scale of values has largely replaced the traditional ones of the tribe, the

school for example

how

A

is

bound

to give its pupils guidance in deciding

to reconcile their responsibilities to these differing traditions.

further result of this kind of social change has been the dis-

appearance from

many

school curricula of various features of the

and attempts at a later stage (which have not been altogether successful) to reintroduce them; Read 28 the training of physical development and identifies three of these social recognition, together with its essential sex-training; training in traditional patterns of education

—

own society; and activities and tribal custom, which have a deep emotional content for Africans. Yet the school's responsibilities are social and moral as well as pedagogic and the success of the national programmes of education now being developed in Africa must depend very largely on the extent to which the schools are able to enter into the life of the community and identify themselves with its needs. This is one measure of the changing role which all schools, secondary as well as primary, must be prepared to play in the educational programmes of the new nations of Africa. It seems, too, that schools will need to press strongly for improvements in the material conditions under which education is given, for the close relation between attainments in school and such factors in the pupil's life as the influence of a secure and stable family life, a satisfactory standard of living and a much richer provision of educawhich

citizenship

is

related to the pupils'

associated with music, folk-lore, art

tional materials

is

now well

established.

seems evident that in all Commonwealth countries in Africa the development of national programmes of education sets a Indeed,

it

variety of responsibilities before the schools at every level in the

system,

some

of

them

arising

from the dramatic changes which have

many communities; such evidence as is available on the behavioural development of African children, and some, of course, from the limitations which are imposed by the priorities of educational planning. The purpose of this chapter has been to show in general terms what some of these responsibilities may be. taken place in the social and economic structure of

some from

a reappraisal of

AFRICAN EDUCATION

20

REFERENCES 1.

Maleche, A.

J.

Sociological

and Psychological Factors favouring or

hindering the Education of African Women in Uganda. Conference Paper, June 1961, East African Institute of Social Research. See also

2.

Committee on Inquiry into African Education (Government Printer, Zomba, Nyasaland, 1962), p. 56. Quelques aspects actuels de V education des filles au Cameroun (Ladurantie, published by Union Feminine Sociale, B.P. 85, Yaounde). Turner, V. W. Schism and Continuity in an African Society (Manchester

3.

Mitchell,

4.

University Press, 1957). J. C. The Yao Village (Manchester University Press, 1956). Jacobs, A. H. Masai Age-groups and Some Functional Tasks. E.A.I. S.R.

6.

Conference Paper, January 1958. Geber, M. Baganda Children. Proceedings of the XIV International Congress of Applied Psychology, vol. Ill (Munksgaard, 1962). Maleche, A. J. Wastage in Uganda Schools. E.A.I. S.R. Conference

7.

Marris, P. Family and Social Change in an African City (Routledge,

5.

Paper,

Kegan 8.

December

i960.

Paul, 1961).

Omari, T. P. Changing Attitudes of Students towards Marriage and Family Relationships.

in

West African Society XI,

Brit. Journ. Socio.

197-210. Jahoda, G. Aspects of Westernisation, II. Brit. Journ. Socio. XIII, 43-56. 10. Colson, E. The Social Organization of the Gwembu Tonga (Manchester 9.

University Press, i960). 11.

Bohannan, P. Justice and Judgement among

the Tiv

(Oxford University

Press, 1957). 12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

Vernon, P. E. Selection for Secondary Education in Jamaica (Government Printers, Kingston, 1961). McFie, J. The Effect of Education on African Performance on a Group of Intellectual Tests. Brit. Journ. Educ. Psychol. XXXI, 232-40. Allport, G. W. and Pettigrew, T. F. The Trapezoidal Illusion among Zulus. Journ. Abnorm. and Social Psychol. LV, 104-13). Hudson, W. Pictorial Depth Perception in sub-Cultural Groups in Africa. Journ. Soc. Psych. LII, pp. 183-208. See also Biesheuvel. The Detection and Fostering of Ability among Under-developed Peoples, Chapter XVI, Yearbook of Education 1962 (Evans Brothers). Kaye, Barrington. Child Training in Ghana, An Impressionistic Survey (Institute of Education Child Development monograph No. 1). Legon Institute of Education (University College of Ghana, i960). Geber, M. and Dean, R.F.A. Gesell Tests on African Children. Paediatrics,

XX,

1055-65.

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA 1 8.

19.

21

Tanner, J. M. Growth at Adolescence {Blackwell, 1955). Unesco. Outline of a Plan for African Educational Development (1961), p. 15.

20. Harbison, F. Investment in Education (i960). High-level

Manpower for

Nigeria's Future (Investment in education, Part II, Chapter I) pubd.

2i.

22.

23.

24.

Federal Ministry of Nigeria, i960 (Government Printer, Lagos). Government of Ghana. Second Development Plan, ig^g-64 (Government Printer, Accra). Federal Government of Nigeria. Development Plan, ig62-8 (Government Printer, Lagos). Government of Western Nigeria. Western Nigeria Development Plan, ig62-8. (Government Printer, Ibadan). Government of Eastern Nigeria. Eastern Nigeria Development Plan, ig62-8 (Government Printer, Enugu, 1962). Government of Tanganyika. Development Plan for Tanganyika, ig6i-2 ig63~4 (Government Printer, Dar es Salaam, 1961).

—

Draft Development Plan for period 1 July ig6i to jo June ig6^ (Lusaka, 1962). 26. Government of Nyasaland. Development Plan, ig62-6$ (Government 25.

Printer,

Zomba,

1962).

Unesco. Final Report of the Conference of African States on the Development of Education in Africa (Addis Ababa, 1961). 28. Read, Margaret. Education in Africa; Its Pattern and Role in Social Change. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and 27.

Social Science, vol. 298 (1955) 170-79.

Education in the Primary School ORGANIZATION AND LENGTH OF THE COURSE In most Commonwealth countries in Africa,

it is

convenient to think

of education at the primary stage as being completed in seven or eight years, although

many

of the children

who

do been conintroduced and

enrol in the

not finish the course. Primary education has, in tinuously expanding since formal schooling was

first

first class

fact,

expansion explains the existence, today, of a variety of schools, each offering a part of the education which is properly called primary.

this steady

may spend

four years in the lower primary and B, and standards I and II), two years in the middle primary school (standards III and IV) and two years in the upper primary school (standards V and VI). In Tanganyika education at the primary stage is given in two schools, the lower primary (standards I-IV) and the upper primary (standards V-VIII) and in Malawi, in junior primary classes (five years) and senior primary classes (three years). Similarly in Rhodesia, primary education is commonly given separately in lower and upper primary classes and, until recently, this was the position in Kenya too: pupils attended the primary school for four years and then proceeded to the intermediate school for a further course of the same length. In Uganda, the primary course lasting six years is envisaged as including also the next two years, which about 20 per cent, of the pupils from Primary VI now spend in junior secondary schools; accordingly, the policy has been to develop Primary VI schools up to Primary VIII, so providing a full primary course of eight years.

In Zambia, pupils

school

(sub-standards

In Tanganyika, too,

A

it is

planned to bring about an extension of the

existing lower primary courses to courses of six years' duration, as the

step towards the introduction of the full eight-year course in all primary schools: and following the Draft Five Year Plan for African Education (ig^y~6i) two hundred new middle schools for boys and thirty-eight for girls were to be operating by 1962, so enabling the

first

f

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

23

IV to V to be increased 30 per cent, and the proportion of girls from

proportion of boys moving from Standard

from 20 per

cent, to

12 per cent, to 16 per cent.

This trend towards one-school primary education is even more in the countries of West Africa. In Northern Nigeria and in Sierra Leone, education at the primary stage (the course is of seven years' duration) may be provided in two different schools and even three in more remote districts where many schools have only recently been established but in both, the policy is for all schools to offer the full course. In Sierra Leone, 'the basic course is of seven years' duration but not all schools have yet developed the full primary course'; 1 in the Northern Region, 'the aim is to provide a continuous seven-year course from the age of six to thirteen, and so to change progressively the present four-year course Junior Primary schools and the subsequent three-year course Senior Primary schools'. 2 Indeed, there has been a dramatic change in the organization of primary education in the three countries where it has now been made free, in Ghana and Western and Eastern Nigeria.* The political

marked

;

commitment

to provide education for all children

who

are willing to

attend primary school has laid an obligation on governments or local authorities to in so

many

open new schools and expand

places that virtually

their 'primary school

life'

in

all

pupils

'lower'

primary schools the whole of

now spend

one school. In Ghana and Western

Nigeria, primary education lasts six years for

all

children in the age-

range six to twelve and may be followed, in Ghana, by a four-year course in the middle school and in Western Nigeria, by a three-year course in a secondary

grammar

modern school

school. In Eastern Nigeria

or a five-year course in a

it is

expected that

full

primary

education which was reduced to seven years in i960 will be further

reduced to six in 1964. In Ghana, education in the primary school is thought of as a basic course complementary to that given in the middle school, and the ultimate purpose is 'to reduce the eight to ten year period preparatory to secondary education until it eventually becomes possible to admit selected pupils direct from the top class of the primary course to the first secondary form without any intervening attendance at middle schools'. 3 At present however, pupils spend six years in the primary school,

and about two and a half years

in the

middle school before they Western Nigeria

are able to gain admission to a secondary school. In

* Pupils still pay fees in the upper classes of the primary school in Eastern Nigeria, 1963.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

24 too, six years'

primary schooling has generally been found insufficient

preparation for secondary school work under present conditions and

Commission recommend the general provision of junior Though experience in these two countries has shown the need to accept a temporary lengthening of the period of pre-secondary schooling beyond the six years in the the Banjo

secondary schools to bridge this gap.

primary school, the need

is

keenly

felt in all

countries to reduce this

long period of education as quickly as conditions permit.

Thus

the

and intermediate schools in Kenya which was nearly completed in 1963, has been seen as an opportunity for reducing the period of primary schooling from eight to seven, which will be achieved principally by streamlining time-tables and syllabuses in the old intermediate course; making changes in the syllabus in general subjects and the requirements of the K.A.P.E., and re-timing the K.A.P.E. examination. # | Such changes suggest a vision of primary education in African countries in which all pupils, boys and girls, will eventually receive their primary education in one school and in which the period spent in it will be successively reduced from eight years to seven and eventually from seven years to six. At the same time, it is hoped that as a result of the national programmes of free primary education and other measures, the standards reached at the end of the sixth year will not be inferior to those now found in Primary VIII. So much having been said about the tendency to organize primary education in a single school, it may be useful at this point to consider the educational reasons which seem to justify such a reorganization. linking of primary

AN AUTONOMOUS STAGE Commonwealth countries in Africa now recognize the need

PRIMARY EDUCATION All

AS

provide education where this voluntary

effort,

and

free

is

not already

made

available

primary education for every boy and

to

by

girl is

programmes in many countries fall short of this. Indeed this is the limit to which most countries they can now commit themselves, and it is for this reason more

the ultimate goal of all, though present still

feel

than any other that primary education may now be envisaged as a stage of education with responsibilities that are clearly defined and which, within the limits of the primary school programme, is complete in itself.

In principle, then, and in some countries already in practice, * Minutes of a meeting of the Advisory Council on African Education, October i960.

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

25

education is no longer to be thought of as a selective process at the primary stage and indeed in many areas pupils can already expect to be promoted without the need to pass an annual examination. Freedom from the need to pass a promotion examination is not likely to have any substantial effect on the general level of attainment in the schools (as some have feared) though it may well prepare the way for significant changes in methods of teaching and in teachers' attitudes towards their pupils. To these general considerations, others of a more practical kind may be added. A school has far more chance of planning the education from which pupils can most benefit over a period of five or six years than it can possibly have in two or three, and education can be given a wider purpose and inspiration over the longer period which may be lost or obstructed in the short term by changes of school, transfer examinations and the like. Promotions may be made quite as rigorously within the school and usually on a wider knowledge of the pupil than by the use of 'external' examinations. Such reorganization also offers the best

hope

for a general reduction in the length of

primary schooling while maintaining present levels of attainment. These are, of course, the advantages of an education liberally conceived in a society where it is freely available, and it is in this direction,

it

would seem,

develop: indeed there

is

that primary education little

eventually be reorganized in

all

is

now

likely to

doubt that primary education

will

African countries to enable every

child to complete his education at this stage in a single school.

AIMS IN PRIMARY EDUCATION One of the principal advantages to be expected from

the organization

of the whole of children's education at the primary stage in one school is

the opportunity

it

offers of relating education continuously to

would include, for example, oppordevelopment and recreation, for learning manual skills and acquiring some facility in simple creative arts and for the development (and satisfaction) of children's curiosity about their immediate environment. It also needs to provide training in the basic skills of reading, writing and numbering, and opportunities for the child to become sufficiently familiar with these processes to draw on them freely and fluently towards the end of the primary course. Most children will want to become proficient in these skills and the school has, in any children's needs at that age. It

tunities for physical

event, a clear responsibility to society to ensure that they do.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

26

Another most important aspect of education at this stage is the development of acceptable standards of behaviour and a sense of social responsibility. Children's ideas of what is good behaviour will obviously change very much during the time they are in the primary school but in every school frequent opportunities arise for expressing these general ideals of conduct in a practical way, and (if one recalls the rapid social changes now taking place in many communities in Africa) it seems to be a major responsibility of the primary school to discover such opportunities and use them in its teaching. All these would probably be included among the objectives of primary education in any country in Africa today. They are implicit, for example, in the statement of aims set out in the Foreword to the Primary School Syllabus for the Western Region: 4 (a)

to develop

haviour (b)

some understanding

of the community and what is of development and of the contribution which the individual can make to the community in which he lives to develop a lively curiosity leading to a desire for knowledge not confined to the immediate environment; to impart permanent literacy; to impart some skill of hand and a recognition of the value of manual work.*

to instil

value for

(c)

(d) (e)

sound standards of individual conduct and be-

;

its

PRE-PRIMARY TRAINING There

is

no obligation

at present in

any of the Commonwealth

countries in Africa to provide education for children before they enter the primary school, and the few schools which have been

opened

in

some countries

for very

young children of three or four

years of age, have been established by private venture or as a form of

community

service.

Such schools

are generally conceived as 'schools

providing education mainly for children

who have

attained the age of

two years but have not attained the age of five years and in which instruction is aimed at teaching the children good physical habits and to be socially co-operative. The curriculum shall comprehend games, stories, simple handwork, painting and such activities suitable to the age of the children.' 5 They will undoubtedly play a significant role in the future for they provide opportunities for social development and training which are urgently needed. *

Quoted

(i95i)-

originally

from

A

Study of Educational Practice

in British

West Africa

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

27

In one account of nursery schools in Africa for example, 'groups play in sand, making sand pies and dig with enthusiastic energy; small boys tear around rolling old motor-car tyres, drive improvised "lorries", play with balls. Little girls play with dolls, bathing them, dressing and undressing them with passionate care. A group may crouch round a tin bath, splitting their sides with laughter at the bubblings they make by blowing through the hollow stems of local or a child, solitary and absorbed, will watch the water falling plants in a sparkling shower through holes in the bottom of an old tin and softly sing a little song of her making "See the rain, it is falling in the sun." The children are full of fun and curiosity and instead of shrinking silently together at the sight of a stranger, will either go on with their play or come flying to greet the newcomer and lead her by

—

some new treasure.' 6 In Uganda, where this took place, the original intention of these schools was quite different; they were intended to introduce the children to the skills of reading, writing and number, and though the hand to inspect

training courses for teachers in these schools have emphasized the

importance of play in child development, many parents have still to be convinced of their value. But not every home in Africa can give a

he needs between the ages of two and five or six; parents work and there may be neither other children with whom he can play nor space for him to play alone. However good the conditions in his home may be, as he grows older he will certainly want the company of more children than he can meet there and the stimulus of a wider society, and this is what the nursery school or class tries to provide. It also provides an invaluable introduction to the more regular and formal work of the primary school not by providing formal instruction itself, but by introducing young children to a wide range of different activities in a way which gives child

all

may be

at

—

them life

a sense of purpose. It

is

as for the social training

nursery schools have so

as

much

for this vivid interpretation of

which they provide that well-organized

much

to contribute to education in Africa

today.

CURRICULA (a)

The lower primary school

Whether children have been the primary school

is

to a nursery school or not, the

purpose of

to deal with the needs of childhood as the

nursery school would deal with the needs of infancy. Four major fields of experience may be distinguished in the curriculum at the

AFRICAN EDUCATION

28

each of which is likely to be progressively differentiated moves up the school. These are training in language; an introduction to the main chapters of human experience in literature, history, geography and the beginnings of science and mathematics; opportunities for the learning of manual skills and expression in the earliest stage,

as the child

creative arts;

and physical

culture.

Training in language. Language is perhaps the most significant field of development at this stage. Children need systematic and wellplanned training in oral expression and in communicating with others and to do this, they need to develop their command of the mother tongue or vernacular. The aim of language teaching at this stage is much more than the teaching of the mechanics of reading and writing it is the expansion of knowledge and the development of concepts. 'In the first weeks, the emphasis should lie on enlarging the children's experience by means of games and stories and especially games requiring dramatization of typical events and characters, e.g. going to the dispensary, being a lorry driver, buying in the market, the visit of a chief to a village.' All these are chosen to provide

—

children with the greatest opportunity for the use of their imagination

and

for self-expression.

Then,

'the teacher

to prepare the children for reading

distinguish shapes

—solving

should introduce exercises

by developing

their ability to

jigsaw puzzles, sorting and matching

pictures and colours, distinguishing slight differences between similar pictures,

so the child's

sizes

in his

own

the pupil

first

and writing

When

and shapes, sorting related pictures' 4 and experience is enlarged as an introduction to reading

comparing

;

language. attends school, language teaching

is

normally

given in the mother tongue, English being introduced as another subject either at the end of the

the primary school course.

be possible to teach

all

diversity of languages,

first

Even

year (Western Nigeria) or later in

in the first year,

however,

it

may

not

children in their vernacular owing to the

and

in

some regions

a

choice has to be

imposed. In Uganda a decision has been taken to concentrate on five vernacular languages Luganda, Lwo, Runyoro, Ateso and Lugbara and these are the languages in which readers are now available. In

—

Zambia there

are over forty languages,

and though

it

is

usually

possible to give instruction in the mother-tongue during the

first

four years of school-life, the production of subsidized readers and other vernacular textbooks nacular languages

is

limited almost entirely to four ver-

— Bemba, Lozi, Tonga and Nyanja. In Malawi, the

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

20,

lowest classes in the primary school are generally taught in Nyanja in the Central

schools. In tribes,

Tumbuka medium in the

and Southern Provinces and

Provinces, English becoming

town

English

schools,

the

in the

Northern

senior primary

on the other hand, with pupils from mixed as the medium throughout (e.g. in

may be used

Uganda). In the countries of West Africa, the vernacular is similarly used in the early stages of the primary school, except in those parts of Africa where there is no dominant vernacular. Primary schools in some parts of Northern Nigeria, for example, give all instruction in English in those areas where the vernacular language is only a lingua franca and not the pupils' mother-tongue; again, English is the medium of instruction in all primary schools in the western area of Sierra Leone. Once the study of the vernacular has begun, it is continued right through the school course and the formal study of English is begun variously towards the end of the first year (as in Western Nigeria), at the beginning of the second year (Kenya) or more often, at the end of the second year (as in Uganda, Zambia and Tanganyika). In Ghana, where the teaching of English in primary classes has been greatly intensified, English

great

number

as the

is

now

of primary schools,

medium

the

and

medium

in

Kenya

of instruction in an increasing

schools, following

of instruction in a too, English is

number

used

of primary

on the pioneer work of the English Language

Centre, at Nairobi.*;*

Manual

skills

and

creative arts.

This

is

also the stage

where children

can and should be given opportunities to develop their creative powers through manual skills, however simple these may be. In the experience of many schools, children are able to achieve remarkably successful

work

at this stage in

many forms

the traditional 'drawing' and 'needlework'

of

—

handwork other than

in pattern-making for

example, in paper-cutting and tearing, in claywork, fibrework and even simple carving. Some parts of Africa have a particular bias

—

towards one kind of work in Uganda, the twig work of Teso, the beadwork of Runyoro, the black pottery of Toro, the palm weaving of Buganda and the decoration of calabashes by the Bagisu and Basoga, nearlv all of which lend themselves to teaching in school. At this

stage,

subject divisions have

provided the activity

is

successful,

obviously very

little

and some of these

relevance

activities

may

be carried out in the craft lesson just as well as in time allotted to art. Other activities in which children delight and which have an evident

AFRICAN EDUCATION

30

educational value are singing and music.

As the Primary School

Syllabus for Western Nigeria points out: full of rhythm and like to drum, and dance in the school. The apparatus should not be elaborate: drums, big and small, sambas, horns, tambourines and gongongs like the villagers use. Although actions and dancing should accompany singing wherever possible, special occasions should be set aside for actual drumming and dancing in the school, especially for classes one and two.

African children wherever they are, are clap

But many teachers are not able to develop these activities as much would wish, sometimes because of the emphasis laid on tribal work and sometimes because the necessary materials are not readily available. Indeed, unless each school prepares a graded scheme at the beginning of the year based on local knowledge, which shows the staff what preparations and materials need to be made beforehand, this as they

part of the curriculum

Other

activities

may

not be well taught or taught at

all.

and skills. Teaching children

simple operations in the four processes

w ork

to count and to carry out an important part of the Here too, the main aim is the is

of the primary school at this stage. performance and the understanding of the processes which the children have to use; games, for example, may be used in various parts of the syllabus, indeed learning through play should be an r

integral part of all teaching, especially in the earlier years. Similarly,

children need to in

many number

become

familiar with the spatial concepts implicit

operations before they can handle

them

Play with pegs and puzzles, mosaic pattern-making with building with blocks to concepts of

all

give a practical introduction (in the

shape and

size,

volume and

fluently. tiles

first

and

year)

direction, just as experi-

ences like shopping, estimating, measuring or weighing and scoring

games

like

dominoes, lotto and snakes and ladders give a practical

introduction to

more

sophisticated operations at a later stage (as in

the third year for example).

Physical culture. Physical culture of particular significance,

if

is

an area of the curriculum which

only because physical well-being

is

is

of

prime importance to children at every age. Moreover, the dexterity, poise and accuracy of movement which can be developed in most children is, in a very real sense, part of the educational equipment of the child. Evidence from a number of developmental studies suggests, for example, that deprivation of such opportunities of development

may

affect children's standards of

attainment in other kinds of school-

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

31

no doubt, one of those areas of made in chapter I) in which African children's opportunities tend to be unduly limited. The Primary School Handbook for Tariganyika Teachers (i960) rightly work. In a general way, this

is,

experience (to which reference was

TABLE

I

Distribution of Periods in Lozver

(Year

Tangan-

BasutoSubject

land

Kenya

1957

jg62

R.L

Primary Schools

I)

Zambia 1961

yika

ig6i

5**

4

4*

5

11

10

11

6

4

2

—

—

—

—

7

6

5

5

— —

—

1

2

Art/craft

3

4

3

Music

2

1

1

P.E.

4

5

Gardening

3

—

2

—

— — 2 — — —

40

35

32

25

Western

Uganda Nigeria ig62 ig62 5

5

Reading, writing,

and

language

work English

Health education Arithmetic

N/S and Science Social Studies

1

13

H

17/11 0/6

5

—

5

5

—

1

—

4

4

1

1

2

5

4 2

40

40

* Seven-year course.

** All lower primary schools work double shifts in standards I and II, so reducing teaching time to twenty periods (thirty minutes each) and five periods of R.I. taken by both sessions together. Each class receives just under three hours' schooling per day.

emphasizes that 'Physical education is useless unless properly done; should be thought out beforehand like any other lesson and the school should be divided according to age and sex. Every teacher must take part in teaching this, not just one while the others rest. Physical education is a teaching subject.' (p. 13, i960 Edition). 7 Physical culture may, of course, be developed far beyond the usual

it

AFRICAN EDUCATION

32

programmes of physical

exercise and games to include training for example in posture, movement and drama. In the past, there has certainly been too much emphasis on health and formal exercises and too little on the psychological benefits of a broadly conceived programme of physical culture. What seems particularly important is that physical culture should be recognized by all teachers as a particularly significant area of experience for the child of primary school age. It is unfortunate, for example, that there are still some schools where physical education periods may be taught by senior pupils or where the lesson itself is taken up by band-playing or grass-cutting.

Accordingly, the greater part of the teaching time in lower primary classes

commonly given

is

to the basic skills, (reading, writing

language work, numbering), the arts and

crafts,

and

music, and P.E., to

which are added four or five periods weekly for religious instruction. In a teaching week of thirty-five or forty periods, the distribution of time between these various activities is very similar from one country to another. (b)

The upper primary

As

classes

moves up the

which were at first become differentiated into geography, history or general knowledge (Tanganyika) and civics (Western Nigeria). Regular instruction is given in English, and other subjects are introduced which are intended to develop the child's artistic sensibilities and manual dexterity, as well as to provide a the child

school, subjects

treated informally as part of 'language'

practical element in the course. In terms of teaching time, these

by increasing the number of week or the length of each lesson and sometimes both primary classes I and II in Western Nigeria spend five hours daily in school against five and three-quarters hours daily for classes III to VI; in Kenya, primary classes I and II spend thirty-five periods of expanded

interests are allowed for either

lessons in the

thirty

minutes weekly in

for classes

a

week

IV-VII

;

class against forty periods of forty

in Basutoland, grade

in class against twenty-seven

standards

V

minutes

A and B spend twenty hours and three-quarter hours

in

and VI.

In terms of teaching method, this diversification of the curriculum raises

note

problems of

first

a different order

the range of

new

and

subjects with

it

may

therefore be as well to

which pupils are expected

to

deal at this stage. It will

pupil in

be seen from Table II that by year VI, the primary school a second language (3 periods), geography

Kenya has added

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL TABLE Distribution of Periods in

33

II

Upper Primary Schools

(Year VI except Basutoland, year VII)

BasutoSubject

land

Kenya

1957

ig62

R.I.

2

4*

English

8

Zambia ig6i

Tanganyika ig6i

*#

Western

Uganda Nigeria ig62

ig62

5

3

4

5

7

10

12

5

10

5

3

3

2

4

4

1

—

3

—

—

1

3

2

Gen.

2

2

Second language Civics (social studies)

Geography

2

knowledge 6

History

2

3

2

—

2

3

Mathematics N/S and

5

6

6

6

5

5

2

2

2

3

2

1

—

—

5

2

2

science

Health education Agriculture

3 ( and agric.)

3

1

—

4 Agric.

Handwk. Art/craft

3

5

2

7

3

(Art)

Agric.

Handwk. Music

2

1

P.E.

2j

3

1

2

— —

1

I

4

3

Handwork/ needlework

4

4

3

(gardening

4Ji * Seven-year syllabus. ** Rural boys' middle school.

40

40

43

39

=2)

40

AFRICAN EDUCATION

34

and history

periods each), health education

(3

language ture

(2)

Zambia

(1

period) and agricul-

added a second geography and history (2 periods each), agriculand handwork (4). For pupils in Tanganyika, Swahili

ture (2 periods). In

similarly the pupil has

(3 periods),

medium of instruction in the lower classes) appears as a second language (2 periods), English appears with 12 periods, general knowledge (6 periods), science (3 periods) and a group of practical (already the

subjects, practical agriculture (4 periods), handwork in the (4 periods) and handwork in the classroom (3 periods).

workshop

In Uganda, the additional subjects are English (5 periods), geography (2 periods), history (2 periods), handwork/needlework (3 periods), arts/crafts (3 periods) and nature study with agriculture (3 periods). In the Western Region, the additions are civics (1 period), history (3 periods), and geography (2 periods) and in Basutoland, history, geography, general science and nature study and current affairs.

These additions may be summarized by saying history (which

raphy,

it is

may be

that in addition to

linked with civics or current affairs) and geog-

usual to introduce children at this stage to

some

if

not

all

of the following areas of study

(a)

Nature study.

example, to

A

study of plants and living things leading, for

a discussion of

matter and energy, parasites and repro-

duction (primary VI, Kenya) or a study of ;

life

beside a lake, bird

life

and respiraton processes (P. VI, Uganda); or planting and care of fruit-trees, methods of plant propagation, seed-cuttings and mulching (primary VI, Western Nigeria). T

Gardening in Uganda; some study of agricultural methods based on the school garden and leading to a study of crops, methods of harvesting and recording yields (in primary VI, Kenya); in Tanganyika, a thorough study of agriculture based on the school (b) Agriculture.

farm; in Basutoland, a study of crop rotation, the use of garden cropping and the storage of vegetables. (c)

fertilizers,

Health education. Training in the principles of good health, either Kenya and Uganda) or im-

directly (as in schools in Basutoland, plicitly

through the supervision of dormitories, class-rooms and

school grounds (as in Tanganyika). (d) Arts

and

crafts.

Training in craftwork and some form of

artistic

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

35

expression though there are considerable differences from one country to another in the emphasis given to this. Pupils in Western Nigeria commonly learn to make mats, finer types of baskets and chairs and tables while pupils in Kenya may be learning to make comb-patterns or to do patternwork using cassava and potato printing and clay-modelling and in Basutoland, they may be taught to make

brushes, ropes, hats, baskets and leatherwork. It is

of interest to note that in the Eastern Region of Nigeria, a

forthright

effort

has

been made

to

introduce

handicrafts

into

education in the upper primary classes by setting up nine centres in

urban areas

for the pupils in

Years VII and VIII, all of whom The purpose of the

attend one centre once a week for two hours.

programme is 'to develop a creative feeling in the child and teach him to recognize the value of manual work' and instruction is given in wood and metal-work. It is reported, however, that the extension of this scheme to

all primary schools in the Eastern Region would be financially prohibitive and that in its present form, its educational value mav be limited. It has accordingly been recommended that some of the simpler activities from the handicraft selection be added to the programmes taught in primary schools, so making handicrafts (on a somewhat broader basis and including other forms of handwork such as weaving, wood-carving and raffia-work) an integral part of the primary school curriculum

in the Region. 8

Projects

and group-work.

Two

kinds of difficulty frequently arise in

the operation of timetables of this kind, one due to the natural

tendency for subjects which are identified with particular periods and a specific syllabus to be taught in isolation from other subjects in the curriculum, and the other due to the increasing diversity of interests and ability between pupils as they grow older. A well-known way of meeting the first difficulty, though one which has been practised with varying success, is to group teaching in a number of subjects round a central block, as is done for example in the rural middle schools in Tanganyika. 'Practical agriculture and animal husbandry is the heart of a boys' middle school education therefore it is absolutely essential that its teaching should be correlated with the teaching of other subjects (links with arithmetic and geometry through the calculation of areas, the weighing of seeds, manure and crops; links with general knowledge through the study .

of the conditions desirable for growth of particular foodstuffs.

.

.

19 .

.

.)

AFRICAN EDUCATION

36

Periods are allocated to general knowledge rather than history and

geography, and though both subjects are taught, the approach is through information collected and edited on the basis of the pupils' own experience rather than through a textbook. Teachers are advised to point out as often as possible the

related

and

simple projects and group-work.

VI

ways

in

which both subjects are such links, through

to give pupils practical experience of

are a physical

map

Among topics suggested for standard

of Africa in relief in the school grounds and a

wall-chart to which details and illustrations

may be added

as lessons

progress.

The second type of difficulty, rising from differences in interests and maturity of the pupils in the class, may be met by some arrangement of the work which allows a majority of the pupils to proceed at their own pace. Children may be divided into groups of eight to ten and provided with material graded to suit their level of general ability and attainment; in language lessons, for example, such methods have been found particularly useful, because they enable every child to get more practice and practice at his own speed, whether in reading aloud or

silently,

The aims

than

re-stated.

ment between the

is

possible in class-teaching.*

There

is

then a considerable measure of agree-

syllabuses proposed for the primary school in

the various countries cited as examples here; and indeed, these syllabuses

fit

closely to the

recommendations which were made

in

the Final Report of the Unesco Conference of African States, at

Addis Ababa. 10 This Report recommended that general education at the first level should 'be considered to cover broadly six years, be general and not vocational in intention, and include elements which inculcate manual dexterity and respect for it, provide experience in creative activities and stimulate an intelligent approach to the practical problems of the home and the community' (Chapter VI, P- 49)-

in

These aims, it continues, should be achieved through which the contents are broadly described as

curriculum

communication;

(a)

a language for everyday

(b)

a language of wide currency

(c)

manual

*

a

activities;

The New Peak

Course, Oxford University Press, for example, which is now used number of primary schools in Kenya, assumes that

for the teaching of English in a

the teacher will organize learning and practice in groups.

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL (d) (e)

(/)

(g)

37

fundamentals of the arithmetical processes an introduction to the study of nature and to the basis of citizenship and moral values; an elementary knowledge of the human body and how it works the development of healthy habits and the right attitude to nutrition.

THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS The extent to which primary education is available to children

of

school age can only be determined accurately in countries where a

census has been taken, and the answer

may be

complicated by the

varying periods which children spend at school. In Uganda, for

example, where a census was completed in 1959, the following table shows the number of people who had attended school in the agerange six to fifteen years:

TABLE Schooling by

Age and Sex

III in

Uganda

(ages 6-15)

Length of

Up

5-6

7-9

Never

years

years

years

10 years

Male

365,000

273,000

50,000

12,000

1,000

Female

442,000

150,000

19,000

3,000

—

of Schooling

to

4

According to the Census Report, 11 about 40 per cent, of the male and 17 per cent, of the female population have been or were at school and these percentages conceal considerable variations between the provinces, the proportion in Buganda being higher than elsewhere. However, by 1961 more than 50 per cent. (548,000) of the estimated number of children in the age-range six to eleven years were attending aided and unaided schools in Uganda. 12 In Ghana, too, preliminary figures from the i960 census indicate that in

some

areas 50 per cent, or

more

of the children are in school

though in the North, only one child in ten receives schooling 13 and the following table shows how attendance varies at different ages:

AFRICAN EDUCATION

3«

TABLE

IV

School Attendance of all Pupils aged 6 or over in

XIV, Advance Report Census of Ghana) 14

(Extracted from Table

Ghana

of the i960 Population

Percentage of pupils who have attended

Total

Present

(all children)

attendance

244,070 192,410

74,100

30-6

•4

78,520

40-8

2-1

72,150 66,700

41-6

3-6

42-6

6.4

H

173,240 156,410 i3°>39°

9-1

106,150

48,400 35>26o

37-i

16 18

131,220

19,720

33*2 15-0

15*4 22-8

Age 6 8

10 12

Percentage

in the past

In some Commonwealth countries no census reports are yet

and the most reliable information is accordingly that provided by the total number of children in attendance at primary schools. Here, too, it must be remembered that the total number of enrolments may give a misleading impression of the proportion of children being educated, as there may be a substantial amount of wastage from one year to the next. The estimates given below of the available,

table v Enrolment in Relation

to the

Estimated School-age Population in Primary

Schools in Tanganyika

(Quoted from Report of

UNESCO

Planning Mission for Tanganyika

(1962) p. 15)

Enrolment as percentage

school age

School

school-age

Ratio of boys to

population

enrolment

population

girls

480,000 460,000

267,118

56

2j:i

196,713 39> 6 38

43

3

Estimated

Standards I— II Standards III-IV Standards V-VI Standards VII-VIII

440,000 420,000

of total

27,849

9 6

:I

5:1

6:1

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

39

proportion of children receiving primary education in Tanganyika

shows the extent

may

it

to

which any global

total or

percentage based upon

be misleading. 15

In the following table, figures have accordingly been given of the

number

of pupils enrolled at different stages in the primary school

show not only

course, as these

some Year

the overall degree of wastage but also

promotion examination in year IV Malawi and Rhodesia, and Year VI in Basutoland).

of the effects of the

V in

TABLE Enrolments

in

(or

VI

Government^ Local Authority and Aided Primary Schools

(Figures in each

row

are for the

same year and allowance must be made when comparing figures from

for yearly increases in total enrolments

different columns.)

Final year

Year VIII

or

Country and year Basutoland (1962)

Year I 44,606

Year

11,621 (yr.

Bechuanaland (1961)

Gambia (1963) Ghana (1964)

10,598 2,206

272,150

IV

VI)

4>877 1,726 I03.075

Year

North

162,460

3,593

972

1,393

1,427

33,754 126,021

19.847 75»3o8

I53.7O0

129,098

54464

West

265,277 i9>3 12

138,854 167.516 I3'7i7

72.783

58,278

33,74

26,412 (yr-

Leone (1963 j

Rhodesia (1963)

Uganda

(1961)

V)

30,112

12,336

123,719

81,065 (yr.

Swaziland (1962) Tanganyika (1962;

VI) 35*547

87,781

Sierra

—

78,595

121,214

334^38

Zambia (1962) Malawi (1962)

VII)

158,508

East

Lagos

3o6i

4*753 (yr.

(yr.

Kenya (1962) Nigeria (1962)

V

V)

12,686

6,051

26.190

9,672

16,122 (yr.

VI)

9.780

35.827 (yr.

VI,

9470 (yr.

VIII)

3,355 26,962 (yr.

VIII)

4,860

4,020

125,521

98,139

26,803

82,877

43*403

12,780

8.955

(J.S.I.)

(J.S.II)

9,642

(yr.

VI)

1.965 J

3'73o

AFRICAN EDUCATION"

40

These figures emphasize several features of primary education which must give grounds for concern. The first is the tremendous disparity between the facilities enjoyed during the and those during the second four years

TABLE

first

—

four vears of schooling

a disparity

which

will

be

VII

Percentage oj Children of Primary School-age attending School

Quoted from

'Final Report, Conference of African States' (Unesco) 1961, Educational Situation in Africa Today.

Table

I,

Ratio of enrolment

Estimated

adjusted to

Enrolment

population

population 5-14

primary

5-14 rears

for duration of

('000)

school

119,000

165

90-5

31,000

84

483,000 651,000 109,000

1,208

46-4 66-7

in

Country and year

schools

Basutoland (1958)

Bechuanaland (1958)

Ghana Kenya

(1959)

(1958)

Mauritius (1958)

I0 62

52-1

153

ioo-o

Nigeria: Lagos (1958)

56,000

83

85-4

North (1958) West (1958)

230,000

4439

1,037,000

1,657

7-4 ioo-o

1,221,000

1.950

78-3

243,000 269,000

566 667

53-9

246,000

83-5 21-0

30,000 422,000 501,000

649 590 67 2,i93

24-1

1,603

52-2

15,000

75

25-0

East (1958) N. Rhodesia (1958 9) Nyasaland (1958) S." Rhodesia (1958) S.

Leone (1959)

74,000

Swaziland (1958) Tanganyika (1958)

Uganda

(1959)

Zanzibar (1958)

increased by self-help projects aimed at providing ary schools. In such a situation, there existing schools

providing a

55-9

new lower prim-

an urgent need to consolidate

by expanding junior primary schools

into schools

full course.

The second

is

the inadequacy of four years' schooling for the

majority of children

who succeed

may

in obtaining a place in a

primary

retained in later years, even the

skill

fade with a consequent high lapsed-literacy rate.

The

school; "little of consequence

of reading

is

50-5

is

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

41

by the brevity of the school day since (in Tanganyika) all Standards I and II work part-day schooling and half of all Standards III and IV do so. Apart from the wastfulness of the system, in respect of many children whose education is thus limited, the whole educational structure suffers in that much time later on is spent on remedial work erall estimates of the number of children of school age who were attending primary schools, were prepared by Unesco for the Addis Ababa Conference in 1961, and thesr i:z reproduced above: effects of this truncated schooling are exacerbated

W ASTAGE In some school systems, wastage /.cans that primary school places remain unfilled; in others that there are insufficient vacant pk:rr in the next class. But in countries where the number of children failing :

to continue at school

is

obvious.;

consolidate the education already provided

1 editable to

substantial proportion of the total,

a

it

is

by

ensuring that more pur us riss into the higher classes. Such, for example, was the general sense of the recommendations made by the into African Education in Xyasaland. 16

Committee of Inquiry

The

following extract shows the extent of wastage in that country for the years 1956-60.

TABLE Primarx Sch .

Bo;.s

;»:.;

Sub-stundurd A Sub-standard E Star.dird

I

Standard II Standard III

-?Z:

.

--

VIII

Enrolments T7

-

in

Maluzci

..j... ;._.._.

6;.2 = 2

: :

*957

3

-:-

2

1953

:u:

A_". v

A-Std.

19*431

_

I-II

19

II-III

-

I

'-

According tot h e R eport, These percentages show that of all children enter a primary school, little more than half go beyond the Gist year while less than a third complete three years :: schooling. Opinions van* widelv as to the minimum period of schooling likely to make any impact on a child. Some say that even five years is insufficient to offer permanent literacy; other it attendance at school, for howevex short a period, provides a child with a stimulus towards a moral and social awareness of his environment. In our opinion, this *

who

AFRICAN EDUCATION"

42 wastage

another inevitable source of pointless effort and expen-

is

diture.' (p. 59).

The Committee

accordingly proposed that there should be no

increase in junior primary schools

needed each year

beyond the

fifty

new

schools

to allow for the increase in population,

but an

annual expansion of one hundred and sixty senior primary

classes;

'as

the

objective

is

an integrated system, we

senior primary classes should be

added

feel

that

in

fact

primary

to selected junior

At present, just under 40 per cent, of the children in Standard III are selected for entrance to the senior primary classes, and these recommendations are based on the assumption that it is possible to raise the proportion of children moving into senior primary classes to 50 per cent, of the Standard III enrolment. In general, wastage seems to be higher in schools where physical classes'.

conditions are poor, classes are large, books are in short supply and the teacher unqualified* and in

some

areas, of course, there are local

reasons for children's absence from school. In Swaziland, for ex-

ample,

many

parents do not insist on their children remaining at

school after the

first

year because of their usefulness in the kraal as

they grow older: even

so, attention to

other factors

steady improvement in attendance as seems to be ing figures:

may

shown

lead to a

in the follow-

17

TABLE

IX

Pupils attending Primary Schools, Swaziland (1956-62)

A SubB

Year

Sub

1956

9,025

1962

9,642

/

//

III

IV

V

VI

4,974

3.424

3o x 9

1,719

i,i73

931

787

7,158

6,245

4,860

4,020

2,904

2,469

1,965

Wastage also occurs on a considerable scale in countries where primary education has been made free (as has already been shown in Ghana) though it is likely to diminish steadily under the pressure of official policy and the influence of a steadily rising standard of education. This encouraging trend is apparent for example in the following figures which refer to the Eastern Region of Nigeria. * See in particular Committee of Inquiry into African Education (p. 59) for comoffering only two years of primary education.

ment on the unassisted primary schools

EDUCATION

IN THE

PRIMARY SCHOOL

-}

TABLE X

_^^094

Infants I

I"hn:s Class

1

_:-

II

: :

164,484 :::

-: :::

I

Class II

_:i"

Class III

_^

-.155

2:: ,792

—

IV

:

:

—

::_:: -

69,553

V

::

195 :;z

59.:::

Class

Class

VI

2S.269

:- :_:

:

j_

:

-Jo:

-~

::_:: ; ;

H3

114,037 ::

;S; : :

v

182,920

;

:_:

156^03

::

166,928

:::

99

:_:

-:

4*

47.252

4.3

" :

r

5 :

-

;

S

8o, 5 00

:

61,693

—-

-;

-;--

5

:-

257 - 5 5

5: 2_2

Free primary education was introduced into Eastern Nigeria in [957 and these figures which give enrolments over a period of four years, show an absolute increase in enrolments at all levels (if one

excepts the unusual figures for 1957) and a general tendency towards They also show an appreciable degree of wastage from

expansion.

year to year (except in 1957) which may be estimated approximately (on the assumption that all pupils are promoted annually) by com-

paring the enrolments of successive classes in successive years. Most pupils in Class I in 1958 for example, would be pupils ::" Class II in

Perhaps more important, they also show an appreciable increase in the proportion of pupils staying on to comple:e the primary school course; in Infants

I,

in 1956 but in Class

enrolments in 1959 were :*: re: cent higher than 53 ::: cent higher.*

VI they were

'repeating ani automatic promotion The disastrous effects of making pupils 'repeat' if they 1

fail

to reach a

prescribed standard in the yearly examination are widely recognized

and

it is

now becoming

a general practice to promote

all

children one

each year. In the words of the Annual Report from NYasaland (i960), 'the custom which has developed of promoting from ch class only those pupils who are considered suitable interferes greatly with the pupils' progress and creates a vicious circle where there should re 1 sn:: ::h h: :

.

"

.

Class VI, enrolments in i960 were 44 per cent, higher than in 1956.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

44

'Repeating' has an insidious effect throughout the school because a

who repeats in Primary 4 will occupy a place that should have been taken by a pupil moving up from Primary 3 and so on down to Primary 1 and the pressure on places is made more acute by competition from pupils who are seeking admission from sub-grade or private schools. Nor is there any educational justification for making a child repeat if, in fact, education is to be suited to the age and natural interests of the pupil. Indeed, most teachers agree that the presence of over-age pupils has a depressing influence on the class and sometimes leads to disciplinary difficulties too. In systems where most primary education is still organized in two pupil

;

stages, the incidence of 'repeating'

of each stage; and where

all

is

usually greatest in the top class

education at the primary stage

is

con-

tinuous, as in Uganda, Western Nigeria and Ghana, repeating tends

most frequently

to occur

in the senior class.

schools in three districts of

An

Uganda reported

inquiry in primary in

i960, shows for

example, that 14-5 per cent, of the pupils were repeating in Primary V in order to get into Primary VI while 31-4 per cent, of the pupils

were repeating

in

Primary VI in order

to pass into the junior

Secon-

dary7 school. 19

In most African countries regulations have been framed which will by age automatically and it is not expected that

lead to promotion

be accompanied by any lowering in the general

this will

attainment, although a greater proportion of pupils at six or

seven years of age rather than

owing

at five. 'It is

level of

may enter school known that many

burning desire to have their children enrolled, declare that they are six years' old even though they are under age. Such children often find it difficult to cope with the course and

parents,

to their

thereby constitute a drag on both the teacher and the brighter pupil. Compulsory registration of births by the Local Government Authority will

decidedly supply a solution to this problem. Meanwhile the

rule against the admission of under-age children should be rigidly

enforced

and

inspectors

should

check

Commission, p. 17). In Tanganyika, for example, no child

this

regularly' 20

{Banjo

may now spend more than two years in any one class or more than six years in the primary course, and the head teacher is encouraged to set a standard for this when he enrols pupils. 'Remember, enrol the eight-year-olds first, then the seven-year-olds. Only in special cases should any child under seven or over nine be enrolled' (Primary School Handbook, Tanganyika, i960, p. 10).

EDUCATION

IN

THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

Promotion by age can only be implemented on

45

a general scale.

however, if the parents as well as the teachers are convinced that it will not handicap their children, and it is not always possible for an administration to enforce an unpopular decision. It is clear, for example, that public opinion did not support of the

regulations

a rigorous application

intended to enforce automatic promotion in

Western Nigeria and the Banjo Commission reported that obedience to the general outcry

we recommend

that the

retardable in a class should be increased from three to

STREAMING BY ABILITY Some junior primary schools classes to

are large

enough

'in

number

five'.

two or three

to enable

be formed from the children of one age-group and so offer

an opportunity for classifying children by

ability fin 'streams'). This seems an obvious step to take at a time when primary education is being rapidly expanded, for it is reasonable to expect some fall in the

general level of attainment

when

a

much

larger proportion of the age-

group is admitted to the schools. In Kenya, for example, where a major expansion of the intermediate school system was begun in January 1962, it has been suggested that intermediate schools in urban areas should be organized in double streams and that doublestream intermediate classes should be organized in rural areas with 'truncated' primary schools serving them, in order to make possible the grading of pupils by ability. In the first years of such a vast programme of expansion it is understandable that concern should be expressed about any possible drop in standards of attainment, and that special steps should be taken to ensure that normal standards of attainment are reached by the A stream. Yet over a period of years, and as more trained teachers become available, opinion may well move in favour of the class which is a complete cross-section of the agerange. Experience in other countries, for example, suggests that the class of selected children

does not provide the same stimulus to

learning as the representative group and that slow children appear to

be even slower

when

thev are grouped in a class on their

are well aware that they are 'only the is

B

or

C

own

for they

stream'. This experience

supported by recent research which suggests

schools for example, a policy of non-streaming

that,

may

in

English

lead to a signific-

ant improvement in the general level of attainments in reading and

Accordingly, some schools now seek to obtain the advantages of streaming by placing pupils in different groups for

arithmetic. 21

some kinds

of

work or use

a classification in the

morning which

is

AFRICAN EDUCATION

46

changed in the afternoon and they retain the advantages of the allgroup in the remainder of the school's activities. Obviously this may become an issue of some importance in school organization as the average size of primary schools increases. ;

ability

MAINTAINING STANDARDS IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL Whatever improvements may be secured by administrative decision in the conditions

school, the teacher

under which education is

given in the primary

is

ultimately responsible for the kind and quality

of the education provided in

it.

In those countries where primary

education has been expanded most rapidly the extent to which the

whole value of the educational programme depends on the professional competence of the teacher has become strikingly evident. In Western Nigeria, the Banjo Commission 20 found that most teachers felt there had been a decline in levels of attainment in the primary school since the introduction of full primary education and this has been due principally, it seems, to the withdrawal of many trained teachers to secondary schools and the recruitment into primary schools of many others who had had no training at all (78 per cent, of all primary school teachers in 1955 and 65 per cent, in i960). Of the detailed criticisms which follow, most can probably be traced to this lack of professional training. (a)

On

the teaching of nature-study, gardening and health, the

that: 'Our impression is that for the most part, in primary schools, the wealth of teaching material which exists in the immediate environment of the school and the home is being neglected. ... At almost every stage, we find a repetitive obsession with leaves, stems, roots and flowers. ... (p. 63). With regard to health talks, we find it hard to understand why the mosquito as an enemy to health does not receive attention until Class IV when the child is over ten years of age and why emphasis is not put on the need for coloured charts or posters produced by the teacher or older children giving pictures of common trees, shrubs, birds and insects with

Commission says

.' names prominently written beside them. In the same subject area, the Commission gives high praise to the preface to the syllabus in 'Nature study, gardening and health habits', but 'unfortunately we did not see any school in which all the health activities were carried out and we have reason to believe that in many primary schools, the latrines are allowed to become unhealthy places' (Appendix III). (c) 'The teaching of English is allocated no less than ten periods of

their

(b)

.

.

EDUCATION

IN THE

PRIMARY SCHOOL

47

week for six years but it seems that the standard which is reached at the end of it is very low. The headmasters of the secondary modern and the secondary grammar schools testified the whole forty period

to the falling standard of English since the inception of the

scheme'

(p- 4).

One

is to impart some skill of manual work and this, according is the least achieved. Tt was hoped that the literate primary school leavers would go back to be better farmers, carpenters, bricklayers, etc., but all the pupils themselves want to be are junior clerks in offices. We are told that some of the teachers use gardening as a form of punishment for the pupils' (p. 4). Virtually the whole of this appraisal of primary education in the Western Region hinges upon the generally low professional com-

(d)

of the aims oi primary education

hand and recognition to the Commission,

petence of

many

thousand

primary

of the value of

of the teachers. In January 1961, of a total of forty

school

teachers,

twenty-six

thousand

were

untrained, according to the Commission, and there was a continuous

exodus from the teaching profession to other less arduous and more remunerative forms of work, leaving in the profession only the few with vocational inspiration and a large body of those who could not pass their examinations. This, surely, is a most challenging conclusion and not merely for Western Nigeria, for it underlines what is perhaps the most pressing problem in all African countries today the scarcity of trained

—

teachers with a sense of vocation.

There

is

then, an enormously increased interest in education in

even* country in Africa today and one which has led to a re-

examination of aims and organization

at

every level and particularly

the aims and organization of the primary school. Education at this level,

it

is

now

education in

its

re-appraisal of

generally agreed, should be planned as a stage of

own

right

methods and

and

this

view has already led

to

some

a shift in the balance of subjects within

the curriculum, the general effect of which will be to relate education

more is

directly to children's needs

likely to

become evident

and

in the

interests.

One way in which this may be in a wider

curriculum

recognition of the value of 'practical subjects' such as crafts

and

handwork and

a recasting of the syllabus in other subjects in the light

and modern methods. primary school must assume much greater responsibilities of a social kind: one of the aims of primary of .African needs It

is

also evident that the

AFRICAN EDUCATION

48

it would be generally agreed, is 'to instil some understanding of the community and what contribution the individual can make to it' and an important part of the work of every primary school

education,

be to interpret this responsibility to society in practical terms. third responsibility and also one which is in the fullest sense social will be the need to provide training in courses of a prevocational kind, probably in one or more manual skills or as a will

A

—

—

preparation for training in a trade.

Such major changes

in the character

and organization of primary

education can hardly hope to be carried out successfully unless the teachers have been trained for the work they have to do, and as is evident in the Banjo Report on education in Western Nigeria, trained teachers are the greatest need in primary schools today. Indeed, there

no country in Africa in which the first priority in the field of primary education is not the training of teachers. Changes which are now being implemented in the organization of primary education in most Commonwealth countries in Africa, will also contribute greatly to the achievement of these larger purposes. In a number of countries, full primary education must still be envisaged as an eight-year course and every effort is accordingly being made to give as many as possible the chance of reaching this level, even though it may be necessary for the present to think only of an expansion of the lower primary classes to six years (as was proposed in plans for the reorganization of education in rural areas in Tanganyika) or more ambitiously, of full primary education for eight years to 40 per cent, of the children (as was proposed in the reorganization of urban education in Zambia). In countries where it has already become possible to offer all children full primary education, impressive efforts are now being is

made

to achieve

same educational standards

the

in

courses

of

way to a wider provision of education In Ghana and Western Nigeria for example,

shorter duration, so opening the at the

secondary

level.

the full course in the primary school It is against this

now

lasts six years.

background of great hopes and needs equally

urgent, that every country

schooling 'sufficient in

now

itself to

seeks to establish a pattern of

provide the

minimum

course of

general education which can give children a fair chance of earning a satisfactory livelihood in

available to

all.

modern conditions

of

life'

and one which

is

EDUCATION IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

49

REFERENCES 1.

2.

Ministry of Education, Sierra Leone. Annual Report for ig6oji (Freetown). Ministry of Education, Northern Nigeria.

Primary

Education,

(Government

The Administration of Kaduna, Northern

Printer,

Nigeria, 1961). 3.

Ministry of Education, Ghana. Education Report for the year 1957 (Accra, i960).

4.

Ministry of Education, Western Region. Primary school syllabus, Part

I

(Ibadan). 5.

Ministry of Education, Eastern Region. Education Handbook (containing Education Law, 1956) revised to 1 January i960 (Government

7.

Enugu, i960). Uganda nursery schools, Times Educ. Supp. 9 March 1962. See also Annual Report of the Education Department up to i960, 22-23 (Government Printer, Entebbe). Department of Education, Tanganyika. Primary School Handbook

8.

Ministry of Education, Eastern Region. Vocational education in Eastern

9.

Department of Education, Tanganyika. Middle School Handbook

Printer,

6. Bell, J.

(Tanganyika, i960). Nigeria (Official

10.

11.

12.

13.

Document vol.

13 of 1962) [Enugu, 1963].

(Tanganyika, i960). Unesco. Final Report of the Conference of African States on the Development of Education in Africa (Addis Ababa, 1961). Ministry of Economic Development, Uganda. Uganda Census 1959: cyclostyled publication prepared by Statistics Branch, November 1961 (Ministry of Economic Development, Entebbe). Ministry of Education, Uganda Protectorate. Annual Report of the Ministry of Education 1961 (Government Printer, Entebbe). Ministry of Education, Ghana. Education Report for 1958-60 (Accra, 1962).

14.

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ghana. Population Census of Ghana (Advance Report of volumes III and IV), Census Office

15.

Unesco. Report of Unesco Educational Planning Mission for Tanganyika

16.

Ministry of Education, Nyasaland. Committee for Inquiry into African Education (Zomba, 1962). Swaziland Government. Annual Report Summary for the year i960,

(Accra, 1962).

(1962).

17.

18.

p. 15 (Mbabane). Department of Education, Nyasaland. Annual Report of the Education Department for year ended 31 December i960 (Zomba, 1961).

AFRICAN EDUCATION

50 19.

Maleche, A.

J.

'A Study of Wastage in primary schools in Uganda',

E.A.I.S.R. Conference Paper, 20.

Government of Western to

Review

December

i960.

Nigeria. Report of the Commission Appointed

the Educational

System of Western Nigeria (Government

Printer, Ibadan, 1961). J. C. The Effects of Streaming in the primary school, Brit. Jour. Educ. Psychol. XXXI, part I, pp. 119-27. Yates, A. and Pidgeon, D. A. Effects of Streaming, Educ. Res. II,

21. Daniels,

pp. 65-69.

Rudd, W. G. A.

Effects of Streaming; a further contribution,

Educ.

Res. II, pp. 225-228. 22. Ministry of Education,

Uganda: The Report of the Uganda Education Commission 1963 (Government Printer, Entebbe).

f (p. 22) The Uganda Education Commission (1963) recommended a reduction in the length of primary schooling from eight years to seven so

on to secondary schools after Primary VII. Tanzania too, it has been proposed (1964) that the upper primary course should be reduced to three years. f (p. 29) In Uganda, the Education Commission hopes that English, which now becomes the medium of instruction in Primary VII, will soon be used in Primary V and eventually in Primary IV. that selected pupils will pass f (p. 24) In

\

Education

the Secondary Level

at

AIMS AND PURPOSE IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL Education at the secondary level is, in all Commonwealth in Africa, education at a higher

and more advanced

level

countries

than in the

primary school, and pupils seeking to enter secondary schools are normally required to show that they have successfully completed a primary school course. It is provided in schools of various kinds secondary grammar, secondary modern, technical, comprehensive each of which may offer different courses from the others but in all the principal aims are

—

:

(a)

to continue the training in those disciplines to

which the pupil

has been introduced in the primary school, and develop them in such

new ways

as

appear to correspond to the pupils' grow-

ing range of interests (b)

to 'provide a

life

which answers the

special needs

and brings

out the special values of the adolescent years, just as the

primary school

is

expected to respond to the needs of the

pupils at an earlier stage' (c)

to

make boys and

The

young adult must be individuality', traits of

(d)

conscious of what must be called the

girls

'national' tradition.

essence of effective education for the

'the national tradition in its concrete

and pupils need

to

the national character at

to prepare

boys and

girls for

stay in the secondary school

be made aware of the special its

best; 1

entry into adult is

life

whether their

short or long since preparation

and assuming the responsibilities of an probably as important in the present generation as any other form of training which the school provides

for living with adults

adult

(e)

is

pupils for a vocation. There is a considerable between training which prepares pupils for employment of a commercial or technical kind and that which prepares between the educational programme of for a specific trade the secondary school and the apprenticeship programme of the

to prepare

difference

—

AFRICAN EDUCATION

52 trade centre

— and

it is

the

initial

orientation towards vocational

subjects that the secondary school

may

reasonably be expected

to provide.

THE BREAK BETWEEN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION Though secondary education in all countries is organized separately from primary education,

it

is

so evidently a development of the

education begun in the primary school, that state briefly the reasons

which seem

to justify

it may be useful to such an interruption

in the pupil's career.

The most education

is

valid reason for a break

much wider

to a

between primary and secondary

of course that older children are able to apply themselves

range of subjects than

school and that the specialist training

is

possible in the primary

w hich T

these subjects require

can be given more effectively in a school organized specifically to meet the needs of older pupils. Experience in other countries has shown, moreover, that where education for children of all ages is organized within one school, there is often a tendency for the work of the lower and primary classes to be subordinated to the aims and supposed needs of the secondary ones. For psychological reasons too, it seems desirable that a break should be made in the long period of education from six or seven years to eighteen or nineteen years of age, and that for those selected for secondary schooling this should occur preferably at the beginning of what may be virtually a new type of education. Certainly the changes in pupils' attitudes, interests and physique at adolescence strengthen the case for a change in the type and character of schooling which is offered to the pupil at the post-primary level, though it is difficult to argue that the break should occur at any particular age on this account; in boys, the adolescent spurt occurs on the average from age thirteen to fifteen and a half, while in girls it tends to begin about two years earlier and lasts on the average from eleven to thirteen and a 2

half."

Finally, the

amount

secondary level that

of specialist teaching

it

is

is

so

much

greater at the

not merely convenient but necessary to

organize teaching at this stage within a single institution to give greater measure of coherence

and

it

a

unity.

In most countries then, children

who

are to continue their educ-

ation in the secondary level are transferred to the post-primary school after five or six year'

primary schooling and usually about the age of

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL twelve or thirteen. In some, however, there are

who do

still

53

many

children

not finish their primary school career before the age of fourteen or fifteen a late age for beginning secondary school education

— —and in these, the tendency

is

to press for a lower age of

Region of Nigeria, the Government has ruled that no pupil over the age of thirteen shall be admitted to a Government secondary school, and a similar trend has become evident in the transfer: in the Eastern

practice of the voluntary agencies in that

Western Nigeria, 'most principals prefer

Region. Similarly, in

to select

boys

who

to finish the course at the age of seventeen or thereabouts'

(

are likely

Triennial

Report, 1955-8, p. 3) 3 and in Ghana too, there has been a noticeable decline in the ages of candidates seeking admission to secondary

schools in the period 1957-60. In 1957, only 8 per cent, were aged thirteen or under; in 1958, 18 per cent, were thirteen or under, and in

1959 and i960, the proportion of younger pupils was 24 per and 26 per cent, respectively. 4

cent,

TYPES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL Virtually

all

education at the secondary stage in

countries in Africa

is

Commonwealth

given in either secondary schools, technical high

modern schools, or (in Ghana) middle schools. In the secondary or grammar school, the most significant feature of the teaching has been, and still is, the emphasis which it places on the value of 'general' or liberal studies rather than on those of a technical or scientific kind, an emphasis which has equipped it schools,

particularly well to train pupils for entry to the universities, the

and commerce. most pupils in any of these careers

professions, the civil service, insurance

Until recently, the

first

step for

was taken when they passed the School Certificate examination, because this certificate was accepted in place of the preliminary professional examinations of some bodies (as a qualification for insurance for example) and was under certain conditions also sufficient qualification to secure entry to the University College of

Makerere or the University College of Ibadan.* In the minds of people and indeed for most pupils, the School Certificate seemed to be the natural end of the secondary school course. Until recently, few schools offered teaching beyond this level, though pupils wishing to go on to university studies would usually need to stay in the secondary school at least two years longer to take the more advanced examination the Higher School Certificate.

many

—

* See

Chapter V, 'Education in the University'.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

54

The curriculum of the grammar school often includes Latin, sometimes a modern European language, mathematics and one or two sciences as well as the English subjects, English, history and geography.

Education in the secondary grammar school

may be

said to be

characterized by a scholarly approach to knowledge and the develop-

ment

of a firm intellectual discipline

application and attainment and

boy and less

girl

is

;

it

demands high standards of

of considerable benefit to the able

wishing to enter one of the professions. Obviously

appropriate for pupils

who have developed

it is

a special interest in

and still less appropriate for pupils who have never developed either the interests or the intellectual discipline which it presupposes. One way in which the needs of other pupils has been met in Eastern and Western Nigeria and in Ghana has been by the development of grammar schools with a 'technical stream'. In Eastern Nigeria for technical subjects

example, students taking this course spend some seven hours a week

normal timetable, learning woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing. Only three grammar schools in Eastern Nigeria had a technical stream in i960, but following the Report of the Joint Consultative Committee on Education which met in Lagos in December i960, it seems probable that other schools will include some manual subjects in order to engender a respect for the 'work of in addition to the

hand'.

The

recent Report on Vocational Education in Eastern Nigeria

(1962) suggests, for example, that practical subjects like handicraft and manual work should be carried out during the first three years of

grammar school courses. 5 In Ghana, the secondary technical school at Takoradi provides a five-year course leading to the School Certificate based on a curricall

includes English, French, mathematics, physics, chemwoodwork, metalwork and technical drawing {Report for

ulum which istry,

1958-60,

p. 35).

Another way in which the needs of pupils of secondary school age have been met, and particularly the needs of pupils who have not shown any special aptitude for academic work, is through the development of secondary modern and middle schools. In Western Nigeria modern schools, which pupils enter at the age of twelve or over, after completing the primary school course, are intended 'to provide a good, all-round secondary education, not focused primarily on the traditional subjects of the curriculum but developing out of the interests of the children'. The course lasts three years during which

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL an approved syllabus

is

taught, the

English and at the end of

Leaving

it,

medium

of instruction

pupils take the Secondary

55 is

mainly

Modern

Certificate.

Similarly, in

Ghana, the middle school provides

a four-year course

designed to follow on the six-year course of the primary school.

The

normal age-range of pupils in middle schools is twelve plus to sixteen plus and as its principal purpose is to provide a pre-secondary course which will prepare pupils for entry to the grammar school after two and a half years, transfer to grammar schools accordingly takes place most commonly in the fourteenth year. It is, however, obvious that the middle school must soon be reorganized to provide a general course of post-primary instruction and that this will include courses of a vocational character based either on agriculture, commercial subjects, metal and woodwork or handicrafts and home economics. This has now been made explicit in the Seven Year Development Plan which provides for the replacement of the four-year middle school by a two-year continuing school with a strong vocational bias. In recent years, between 6-7 per cent, of the pupils admitted to middle schools have later been admitted to grammar schools, and virtually all those who complete the course in the middle school take the Middle School Leaving Examination in their final year. In Uganda, too, a limited experiment was begun in i960 in providing secondary modern classes; here, too, the object was to enable children with a good level of attainment who had failed to obtain a place in a senior secondary school to be given a further two years' education with a practical, though not vocational bias. Indeed, three of the four original courses have a bias towards agriculture and one towards commercial subjects. By 1961, the number had increased to ten, 'possibly an indication that the suspicion with which parents and politicians have previously regarded these courses is diminishing' {Annual Report 1961, p. 6). 6 A number of secondary technical schools (twelve in all) were also ,

established in Uganda to give pupils with a minimum of six years' primary schooling, a two- or three-year preparatory course before beginning vocational training in a trade centre these have recently been ;

reorganized to enable selected schools to concentrate on specific trades

but they continue to offer an alternative to academic or 'modern' education at the secondary level and some eleven hundred and fifty pupils were enrolled in them in 1961. A small number of farm schools have also been established (eight in 1961) in which the greater part of the curriculum consists of practical farming activities. { It is hoped

AFRICAN EDUCATION

56

to broaden the scope of the teaching in these schools and as full primary schooling becomes the required level of entry, they too or their replacements will become secondary schools parallel to secondary modern schools. Secondary schools with a commercial bias have been developed in Eastern and Western Nigeria, but not with uniformly happy results. In the Eastern Region, there were seventeen secondary commercial schools in 1959 offering a five-year course (total enrolment three thousand four hundred and thirty-three); in the Western Region, it has been decided that commercial secondary schools must opt either to be regarded as secondary or modern schools and accept the academic responsibilities corresponding to this status secondary schools must aim at the Senior Certificate of the R.S.A. or the W.A.S.C. and others at the secondary modern leaving certificate. Of the fourteen commercial schools existing in Western Nigeria in 1958, one was approved as a secondary commercial school, three were changed to secondary modern schools and the remainder were to change their status in 1959. In other Commonwealth countries in Africa, virtually all education at the secondary level is given in secondary schools of the grammar type, in Sierra Leone and Gambia, in Kenya, Tanganyika and Malawi, and in Zambia, Rhodesia and the Protectorates.

—

THE ARGUMENT FOR COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOLS The practice of organizing secondary education in several

types of

school (as in Nigeria and Ghana) or (as in most other countries) in one

kind of school in which only a very small proportion of the children leaving primary schools ever gain a place, has been sharply criticized on various grounds.

Any

process of selection,

because the pupil

it is

who cannot

claimed,

is

socially unjust, partly

afford the school fee will be denied the

who comes from a privileged home is more likely to pass the qualifying tests than the one who comes from a poor one. 7 Again, the selection examination may fail to achieve its purpose because some pupils are selected who fail to justify a place in a grammar school and others are rejected who turn out to be able pupils (see later section on secondary school schooling and partly because (in general terms) the pupil

selection).

More

significantly, a

system of selective secondary educa-

tion provides a relatively limited basis for the development of a

democratic society and attitudes.

may

favour the development of undemocratic basis of the grammar school

Moreover the educational

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL course tends to be highly specialized and lends the

provision

itself

with

of the prevocational preparation which

secondary education should also

offer.

According

to the

57 difficulty to

many

feel

Banjo Report,

whereby a proportion of the most talented drawn off at the age of twelve to undergo a form of education which is strictly academic, in separation from their peers, their brothers and their sisters, has many disadvantages including the creation of a number of unnecessary cleavages in human society'. 8 For such reasons, the comprehensive school, a school which is 'the present system,

children are

intended for

all

dary education,

pupils in the area

may seem

different types because

it

who have been

selected for secon-

preferable to several secondary schools of

provides

'all

the secondary education of

all

the children in a given area without organization into sides'.

In Western Nigeria, the Banjo Commission proposed in 1961 that modern schools should be merged or expanded to

existing secondary

form a kind of comprehensive middle school (to be called the Junior Secondary School) which would be open without any selection examination, to all pupils who had passed the primary schoolleaving examination and were able to pay the fees. As at present, the course would last three years and pupils found to be suited for further study of an academic kind would normally transfer to the secondary school (now to be called Senior Secondary school) at the end of the 'It is essential that there should be at least three streams (each containing about thirty-five pupils) in every junior secondary school and that is why we spoke of merging or expanding

three-year course.

existing secondary modern schools.' The first stream would be regarded as the fast stream, about two-thirds of whom would be expected to qualify for grammar school entry, the second stream

would be regarded

normal stream and the third stream as those as a group which would need sympathetic and patient handling. This third group would have an increased proportion of practical studies and a corresponding decrease in theoretical ones. 'The practical studies for the second and third groups from the beginning of the second year take on a somewhat prevocational slant while not being highly specialized' (p. 23). It may be assumed for example, that some pupils (mainly boys) will be given a choice of technical subjects and others a as the

who would have to take the work at a slower pace and

choice of commercial subjects and (for

girls), a

pre-nursing course.

The Commission

estimated that three junior secondary schools, each having three streams of three classes, would be needed to feed any

one senior secondary school (receiving one-third of the output or three

AFRICAN EDUCATION

58

and one of the outstanding advantages of these proposals is much of the preliminary work of the grammar schools could be done in junior secondary schools for which it would not be

classes)

;

of course that

necessary to build dormitories or charge parents boarding fees.*

The will

educational uncertainties are whether junior secondary schools

be able to

offer the brighter pupils as

grammar school has done school which

may

in the past,

adequate a course as the

and whether the grammar

expect ultimately to receive about 10 per cent, of

the fifteen-year old pupils, will be able to provide adequate courses

who

for pupils

W.A.S.C. and

are not suitable candidates for the C.O.S.C.

maintain

or

academic side. Similar proposals were made in the Report of the Review of the Educational System of Eastern Nigeria in i960, based on 'the principle that most, if not all, children should have the opportunity of a secondary education of some kind and also that Nigerian children should be kept together if possible and not separated into too many different types of schools.

school,

.

.

.

still

We

its

are thinking of a type of school, necessarily a large

which develops such

a variety of classes

—academic, technical

and others that the needs of a very large proportion of children will be able to be met there. There are several ways in which such a scheme may be organized, but one that has been put to us attractively would cause the primary school to be shortened so that it finishes after six years study. We would then provide a lower secondary school for the next three years, roughly for the ages of twelve to fifteen, and above this, an upper school running for another three years or so and carrying the pupil up till eighteen or beyond. Those who advocate such a system, are not thinking of a highly selective secondary school. Admission to a lower secondary school would be upon a simple qualifying test and would eventually have no competitive element in it at all. Perhaps as many as 75 per cent, of the age group might one day attend these schools. And if, at the end, they had had three years of secondary schools on top of six years greatly improved primary education, they would we hope be well equipped and also extremely versatile to fulfil the task they would be called upon to undertake out in the world. We would envisage that there would be a leaving examination which would have a national standing and

—

—

recognition.' 9 * See, for example, (a)

A Demonstration Comprehensive School for

Western Nigeria

by Skapski, A. and Somade, B. (United States Operations Mission to Nigeria (I.C.A.), 1961). (b) The Port Harcourt Comprehensive Secondary School by Newbry, S. C, and Ejiogu, N. O. ( West Af. Jour. Educ., February 1964, pp. 36-39)-

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

59

Other countries, too, are now exploring the possibility of developing comprehensive types of school at the secondary level in Uganda, a girls' senior secondary school for 420 has been proposed at Torodo (Report, 1961, p. 5); proposals for the development of secondary schools with a minimum of four streams are under consideration in Kenya;* and it is reported that the first of the inter-regional secondary schools (provided for in the Federal Development Plan ig62-8) is to be opened at Sokoto, Northern Nigeria in 1964 and will provide grammar and technical education 'on a comprehensive basis'.

—

There are, then, a variety of alternatives to the grammar type of secondary education, ranging from organization in different types of secondary school (such as the modern, middle, technical and commercial schools) to three or four-stream schools which are partly or fully

comprehensive, such as were recommended by the Banjo

Com-

mission in Western Nigeria and the Dike Commission in Eastern Nigeria.

The

social advantages of education organized

hensive basis are not in doubt, but in of pupils which can be

accommodated

many

on

a

compre-

countries the proportion

in secondary schools

is still

too

In general, countries in which it has been possible to provide secondary education for a substantial proportion of the age-group, have found it desirable small to justify such a reorganization.

to develop different kinds of secondary schools to cater for the

wide range of interests and needs; in Western Nigeria in 1959 for example, 55 per cent, of the pupils completing primary schooling obtained places in either modern schools or senior secondary schools. Equally, countries in which opportunities for secondary pupils'

education are

still

relatively few,

have found themselves obliged to which will prepare pupils for

give priority to the kind of school a professional career

and the highest posts

THE CURRICULUM The period of secondary education may be

in the administration.

as short as

two years or

as

long as seven or eight. In either event, it is a time when profound changes take place in the pupil's interests and attitudes and when

academic knowledge

seem reason enough

is

greatly extended

and deepened. This would

for treating in stages a course of studies that

may

extend over a significant period of the pupil's life. Such a course, and the studies it embraces, may be considered as falling into two stages, the first a lower stage concerned with the subjects in which all pupils need to be schooled and the second, a higher one in which the range *

Kenya Education Commission Report

(1964), para. 225.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

60 of subjects

is

Such school

reduced, so permitting some degree of specialization in

more general character

place of the

—a

of earlier studies.

much in common with the notion of a

a distinction has

'lower'

recurrent idea in discussions of the secondary school

curriculum

—and

with similar proposals

made

elsewhere

—by

the

Banjo Commission for Western Nigeria for example and more recently with the recommendations of the Conference of African States in Addis Ababa.

(a)

The lower stage

The headmaster

of a secondary or

timetable (for none

is

prescribed)

grammar school

plans his

own

—and he usually does so with the

requirements of the C.O.S.C. or W.A.S.C. in mind.

He

will also

usually seek to assure the general education and development of his

pupils by planning a curriculum which includes most

if

not

all

of the

following kinds of study (a)

language studies in which most time will generally be given to English, but teaching in the mother-tongue is also included here;

(b)

social sciences, including history,

geography and the nature of

civic responsibility; (c)

natural sciences like mathematics,

'general science'

or the

separate sciences (physics, chemistry and biology) (d)

practical

wood (e)

work involving the use of hands and

tools either in

or metal

opportunities for creative expression whether in music, singing,

modelling, painting or the creative

arts.

10 (/) the development and care of the body.*

Many grammar

schools are approved for the

West African

Certifi-

and prepare their pupils for these examinations, while those which are not approved may be considered to be in various stages of development towards this standard. It is fair to say that the standards set by the School Certificate examination represent the level of attainment to which cate or the

Cambridge Overseas School

teaching in

all

five years

and

schools of this type

directed during the

first

four or

which pupils the examination influence very strongly what is

that, in a

prefer to offer in

is

Certificate

more general way, the

subjects

* Adapted from the Final Report of the Conference of African States, Chapter

VI, pp. 46-47.

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL taught throughout.

As

a result, the

way

in

6l

which schools have

inter-

preted the regulations of the School Certificate examination has led to a considerable degree of uniformity in the subjects offered in the

examination and in those taught in the lower classes; in some, the corollary of this is that virtually no subjects are taught which are not examinable. Among language studies, English usually takes the major share of the time and the only foreign language generally taught

Even so,

is

Latin.

danger that the contribution which English and the other humanities can make to a pupil's general education is considerably underestimated. This is not merely a question of teaching more lessons in English, but of giving much deeper thought to the position of English as a language and a literature in societies where it is the there

is

medium

basic

mother-tongue.

a

of communication even though

The

nature of the problem

is

it

may

clearly

not be the brought out in

the following extract:

one of the most important subjects in the secondary school is one of the chief means of teaching that language. In the secondary schools (of Malawi), English is in many instances poorly taught. Many of the pupils do not offer English literature in the School Certificate examination, sometimes on the plea that either the set books are unsuitable or that a love of literature is otherwise inculcated than by teaching prescribed books. The result is that pupils leave school without a good command of English and without their forming any habit of reading for pleasure and for information. No serious attention is given to spoken English as was recommended by the East and Central African Study group nor is it offered at the Cambridge School Certificate examination, as is done in some other parts of Africa (para. 168, the Committee of Inquiry into African Education. 11 English

is

curriculum; the literature of any language

On the teaching It is

of English, the

same report continues

frequently taught by teachers whose native tongue

is

not English and

who have

not been trained in the teaching of English as a second language. Candidates do not offer spoken English in the School Certificate examina-

tion as

is

the practice in

some other

parts of Africa.

Few

offer English

and generally speaking, there seems little encouragement of the reading habit which in too many schools, is aggravated by inadequate

literature

library facilities (para. 92).

Among many

foreign languages, French, which

is

the lingua franca of so

would seem to have an evident practical value, and it seems remarkable that few schools include this in the curriculum it is taught in one or two schools in Western Nigeria but countries in Africa,

;

AFRICAN EDUCATION

62

at all in Eastern Nigeria. Similarly, in Malawi, which is surrounded by Portuguese territory to the south and has territories close bv in the north in which French is the lingua franca, no secondarv schools offer a modern foreign language (1961), and in Tanganyika the position is hardly different. Only two schools of a group of sixteen had any plans for teaching French in 1964. Indeed the study of

hardly

foreign languages

is still an often neglected area of the curriculum in secondary schools in Commonwealth countries in Africa.

In the natural sciences, on the other hand, considerable developments have taken place and there are many grammar schools now which include physics, chemistry and biology in their curriculum. In one group of twenty-one schools in the Eastern Region of Xigeria for example, eleven offer physics, chemistry and biology and two others offer physics and chemistry while girls' grammar schools in the same Region have been able to offer either general science or biologv. The same trend is evident in the "Western Region where general science may be taught during the first two years followed by teaching in biology, physics and chemistry as separate subjects up to School Certificate. In Ghana, eleven secondary schools offer facilities for sixth-form studies in which science courses are available in either the Biological Science Group (botany, zoology, physics, and chemistry), or the Science

Physical physics,

Group (mathematics,

additional

mathematics,

and chemistry).

woodwork, metalwork, and technical been introduced into the curriculum of a number of schools in the Western Region of Xigeria, and in Eastern Xigeria 'technical wings' have been built in some schools. In comparison with these major areas of study, the opportunities which most grammar schools offer for creative expression are slight. Yet pupils are still at a formative stage when an abiding interest may be readily awakened in activities of a creative kind, either in the arts or through work involving the use of tools and for many an African pupil activities of this kind are probably of quite special importance because they provide experiences of sense and muscle training which Practical subjects such as

drawing have

also

are directly relevant to learning in other fields of study. In

grammar this

some

girls'

schools, for example, the pupils get valuable experience in

kind of 'education' through their courses in domestic science, and

there

seem

to be

good grounds

for requiring as

many grammar schools

bovs equivalent opportunities through the teaching of some manual subject such as handicrafts. All grammar schools include in their curriculum in the 'lower' as possible to give

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

63

school the subjects which their pupils are likely to otter in the School

and these generally include English, Latin, and either general science or physics

Certificate examination,

history, geography, mathematics,

some may offer 'technical' submetalwork, and technical drawing. So much as woodwork, such jects effort is now being devoted to the expansion of secondary education

chemistry, and biology. In addition,

that

it

should soon be possible to broaden this curriculum by the

general inclusion of such subjects as

which

are not taught in

all

and music, subjects

art. craft,

schools at present; and by the optional

study of a modern foreign language. (b)

Modern and middle

Though

schools

experience in teaching children of a wide range of

interests at the secondary stage

the

is still

limited,

is

it

main elements of the curriculum in these newer types As the school's purpose is to diagnose

school must be. educate,

and

it

and what

ability-

fairly clear

of secondary as well as to

needs to identify as closely as it can the children's interests and by a process of orientation, to place them in

level of ability

specialized courses of study in Years II and III. or ^in

Nigeria) with those pupils

who

are likelv to

move

Western

to the senior

secondary school. This means that in addition to such basic subjects as English, mathematics, history, and geography, all pupils will spend

some time

in studies involving the

much wider

basis than

is

development of manual

practised in

grammar

after the hrst year, a degree of specialization will activities of

Some

girls

studies

Groups

II

and

may commence

which

will enable

skills

(on a

schools) and that

begin in the manual

III.

to learn typing, others will concentrate

them

to

enter a trade centre, the catering

profession or take a pre-nursing course. Boys will take

up elements

of

agricultural science or metal-work or

machine-drawing or motor-engineering or practical electricity or humbler skills fitting them to become cooks .'.ities. or stewards, tailors or boot repairers. We must not limit : In short, both streams II and III will be having an lion of pre-vocational n their second a any not certain to proceed to senior secondary school, will lary School Leaving Examination in all the sub studied, including the pre-vocational studies which will van- fr :

to school according to the

employment opportunities

of the neighbour'

Rural areas will always include pre-vocational agriculture as nursing for

girls

:

boys and co: book-keeping for

city are as will include elect

for

'ties

girl

l-work

and engineering

may oner typing and Many 01 and metal-wo: ..ill

towns

--.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

64

the pupils in streams II and III

may proceed

to trade centres after their

who do

well in their Junior Secondary Leaving Examination may enter training colleges or technical colleges (Banjo Report, p. 24).*

third year

;

others

The middle

schools which have been developed in

a double function, to 'prepare the

more

secondary school and to prepare the

Ghana

also

have

gifted youth for entry to the

much

larger proportion of

its

pupils (90 to 95 per cent.) for making a living when they have left school at the end of the middle course' (p. 29, Education Report for

ig 58-60).* It is with the first of these that the curriculum is principally concerned as it is now taught: the medium of instruction is English (though the main Ghanaian languages are taught in Forms I to III) and instruction is given in the social sciences (history, geography, and civics), natural sciences (arithmetic, nature study and hygiene) and practical work (needlework, gardening, woodwork for boys and homecraft for girls).

basis of a

These

woodwork

practical activities are generally organized

on the

or housecraft centre serving a group of middle

w hich were set up T

for upper primary classes in the Eastern Region of Nigeria, and can hardly be said to be an integral part of the educative effort of the middle school. Teachers are now being trained, however, who will be expected to give the middle school curriculum greater relevance to the needs of the majority of the pupils and 'divorce it from the present tendency to produce holders of a Middle School Certificate, who by the very nature of their education, have little inclination for any occupation other than the white-collar variety' (op. cit., p. 29).

schools, rather like the handicraft centres

(c)

The curriculum, upper stage

In general terms,

it is

evident that the curriculum in the upper stage

(i) by the specialwhich every pupil may be expected to undertake at this stage (ii) by those areas of study which are of common interest to all pupils language, art and music, some form of social studies and (in the academic stream) a course in wood- or metal-work and (iii) by the

of the secondary school course will be determined ized studies

—

need of pupils who expect to take a technical or professional training begin an intensive study of the sciences and mathematics on which success in these professional studies will depend. In most secondary schools, pupils meet the first of these requirements in their choice of subjects in the sixth form: this often resolves itself into a choice between arts and science subjects in 1959, of one hundred and twenty candidates taking the Higher School Certificate in the Western Region of Nigeria, 66 per cent, offered sciences and 34 later to

—

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

65

per cent, arts and in the same year in the Eastern Region, of a hundred and sixteen candidates, 64 per cent, offered sciences and 36 per cent,

In some schools, however, pupils find themselves obliged to a choice of subjects perhaps in the second or third year while they are preparing for the W.A.S.C. or C.O.S.C. and as subjects which have been 'dropped' in the lower school can rarely be studied arts.

make

to the

advanced

level

with success, such choices in the early years

of the pupil's school career

may

effectively limit his later choice in

the post-School Certificate form. Indeed, the effect of introducing alternatives in the time-table of the lower school often causes pupils to begin specializing at a time

when

their education should

still

be

continuing in general subjects, and, through pressure of time alone, this

may

many from developing personal background of general reading which

prevent

that wide

tastes or acquiring is

virtually a con-

dition of successful education at this stage.

In West Africa in particular, these tendencies are

all

reinforced by

the fairly general practice of entering candidates for four subjects in the Higher School Certificate examination, a procedure which leaves

no time either for study in depth of the

specialist subjects or for

serious application to non-specialist studies.

There

is

an obvious danger, too, that as a result of choosing his

special subjects in the second or even the third year in the secondary

school, a pupil

may

virtually ignorant of

obtain the qualification he

many

The tendency towards

is

seeking and remain

of the great traditions of western thought.

early specialization

practice of teaching only arts subjects in

is

strongly reinforced by the

some schools and

in others,

may be a good case for leaving the pupils what may be called 'minority time' when pupils

only sciences in both, there ;

a certain

may

amount

of

continue their studies in one or two subjects in which they do

not expect to be examined

—areas of 'common

interest to all pupils'. 12

A common, but nevertheless disturbing, aspect of higher secondary education for pupils in some countries

is

the exceptional

number

of

may have to take in the fourth or fifth year in the secondary school. As many schools have not yet developed post-School Certificate work, their pupils may have to sit an entrance examinations which they

examination like the W.A.E.C. sixth form entrance examination in order to obtain a place in a sixth form in another school; this may mean that an individual pupil has to sit a sixth form entrance examination, a 'mock' all

School Certificate and the School Certificate

itself

within a period of some six to eight months.

This prompts the question whether

all

studies at the post-School

AFRICAN EDUCATION

66

be followed in an intermediate college or

Certificate level should not

in the first year of a university course rather than in a secondary

school. In general,

it

seems

fair to

say that most teachers in govern-

ment and mission schools are satisfied that the work done at this stage is a natural extension of work during the previous five years and would insist that

the extension of the pupil's schooling in the post-School

Certificate

forms gives him valuable opportunities for the exercise of and the experience of corporate life. Indeed, in any

responsibility

country or region which already has a number of well-established grammar schools there seems little doubt that educational policy would normally favour the teaching of subjects for the Higher

School Certificate examination in these schools.

But present conditions

in a

number some

Africa are not normal, and in

H.S.C.

level is far greater

of

Commonwealth countries in demand for pupils at the

the

than the schools can supply. In these

circumstances, the development of colleges specially equipped to

provide education

might be a

at the post- School Certificate level

rational solution of the problem, because

it

offers the

means of con-

centrating resources and so providing education for increased

bers of pupils.

A

num-

decision has already been taken to establish an

A

example, which will provide lower and upper sixth form studies for boys and girls 20 and a similar centre has level centre in Swaziland, for

now been

organized in Tanganyika in the

Mkwawa High

School

Mkwawa

accepted ten streams of pupils in January 1964, eight in sciences and two in arts, all of which will complete the course for H.S.C. in two years. Classes consist of twenty pupils and

(near Iringa).

the school will have reached pupils It

its full

complement of four hundred

by January 1965.

may be doubted how

far

such colleges can

offer in a course of

same opportunities for general education as the secondary school and still less, the opportunity which the school offers of taking some responsibility for its corporate life but it must be recognized that the sixth form college is a practical answer to the present scarcity of specialist teachers and resources which are required for such advanced work and one which may commend itself in countries where the shortage of pupils at this level has become acute.* two

years' duration the

;

* On the other hand, the Report of the Survey Team on education in Malawi [Education to Development, pubd. American Council on Education, April 1964] believed that some of the essentials which justify Sixth Form work elsewhere do not exist in Malawi and recommended that studies beyond the School Leaving Certificate should be concentrated, preferably within the environment of a university (p.26).f

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

67

PRIORITY FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION One of the major recommendations of the Conference of African States in Addis Ababa was that investment in secondary education (i.e. up to 1980) should be approximately twice as heavy as in the primary, and that the number of pupils to receive some form of secondary education will gradually rise to 30 per cent, of those completing their primary studies. Such a

over the whole period of the Plan

is reflected in most of the Development Plans for Commonwealth countries that are now available, and the following example, based on information given in the Development Plan for Northern Rhodesia (1961-5) 13 helps to show why this massive expenditure on education at the secondary

scale of priority for secondary education

now seems necessary. The policy of 'localisation'

level

(i.e. filling all posts in the Public Service with persons of local origin) means that for immediate purposes, about two hundred and seventy candidates must be recruited locally

whom about sixty should be graduates, thirty-six have H.S.C. and one hundred and seventy-five be persons with the School Certificate. To these figures the demands of commerce, trade, industry (including the agricultural industry) and local government have to be added; and to meet this total demand, there were about two hundred persons with School Certificate in i960. The forecast of persons obtaining the H.S.C. does not rise to one hundred until 1965 and reaches two hundred only in 1967. The Government Plan accordingly allocates more than half the total grant for African education to the provision of new secondary schools (twenty-three in all) and enlargements of existing ones (in twenty-one schools). each year of

Of £4,480,000

allocated to African education, the

main

sub-totals

were Primary education Secondary education Teacher training Technical and further education

£1,515,000 £2,450,000 £212,000

£263,000 £4,440,000

The

total to

be spent on secondary education was considerably however for it was assumed the voluntary agencies

greater than this

AFRICAN EDUCATION

68

would contribute an additional £815,000

to primary education but £995,000 to secondary education. The following table shows the dramatic changes which are likely to be effected in secondary education by the implementation of this plan

TABLE

1

Proportion of Secondary School Places to Pupils Leaving Standard

A Likely to

1961/2

1962/3

1963/4

i964l5

1965/6

Boys

4>3oo

5.3oo

5,800

Girls

940

4,800 1,100

5,000

VI

1,260

1,420

1,660

Places avail-

Boys

1.275

1.478

1,898

2,063

2,130

able in

Girls

285

4i3

683

728

930

Boys

29-6

307

38-0

30-3

37*5

54*1

38-9 5i-3

367

Girls

pass Std.

B

VI

Form

I

C%ofBtoA

56-0

This means that by 1967, there should be an output at School of eleven hundred and fifty-five boys and two hundred and eighty-five girls and of some two hundred pupils at H.S.C. level (p. 43). 13 In Malawi, likewise, the recent Committee of Inquiry has recommended that the principal effort in plans for educational development should be made in the field of secondary education. Hitherto, secondary education for which only pupils who have completed eight years in the primary school are eligible, has been given in junior secondary schools offering a two-year course up to the Junior Certificate and full secondary schools offering a four-year course up to the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate. The junior secondary course is now virtually indistinguishable from the first two years of the full course, yet of seventeen secondary schools, only four offer the full four-year course and thirteen are either incomplete or are junior secondary schools. The pattern of enrolments in these schools is shown in Table II. The expansion of secondary education would seem to be tolerably easy in this situation because each secondary school provides an administrative structure for a school which could be twice or three times as large if the intake of pupils were in every case increased to Certificate level

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

69

two or three streams. The Committee accordingly made proposals intended to consolidate this structure; it recommended for example that seven of the single-stream schools should be double-streamed by 1968 and that two schools should be treble-streamed, are pointed out that the three-streamed school would enable principals to organize accelerated courses of four years instead of five for the School Certificate examination (so encouraging the

of sixth form classes).

A

three-streamed school

is

of course that this organization

possible to plan a variety of courses to is

more rapid development

further argument in favour of the two- and

meet

pupils' needs for

makes which

it it

often difficult to find time or staff in a single-stream institution.

TABLE

11

Enrolments in secondary schools in Malawi {Annual Report, 1962)

Year

I

726

II

544 104 104

III

IV

On

H

Lower VI Upper VI

9

these assumptions, approximately twice as

on secondary

as

on primary education though

it

much

will

be spent fewer

will recruit far

pupils.

In other countries, too, secondary education receives a similar degree of priority in educational planning. In Western Nigeria,

it is

grammar schools will be accommodate this number of

estimated that the intake into secondary

about fifteen thousand by 1967 and to new schools will have to be built. Sixth form facilities will also be increased from less than four hundred places in i960 to about seventeen hundred in 1967 {The Development Plan, ig62-8). 1 * In Ghana, of £14,150,000 allocated for immediate implementation in the Second Development Plan {ig^g-64), just half will be spent on secondary education and in the total plan, involving an expenditure of nearly £28,000,000, £15,000,000 will be invested in secondary education {Education Report, ig 58-60, p. 8). In the Development Plan of the Federal Government of Nigeria likewise ( 1 962-8), 15 £16-3 million is allocated to education and the pupils,

essential projects in order of priority are (i)

National High Schools, one in each Region, to accommodate five

hundred and seventy pupils;

AFRICAN EDUCATION

70 (ii)

Expansion of University of Ibadan

(iii)

Allocation to the University of Lagos;

(iv)

Sixth form development in Lagos

(v) (vi)

Sixth form development in the Regions Conversion of the Federal Emergency Science School to a National High School.

Two-thirds of

this

money (£n-J

million)

is

to be spent

and the universities. Malawi and other countries now seeking

on the

national high schools

In Zambia as in

the provision of secondary education,

it

may be less

to

expand

difficult to finance

such plans than it is to find the teachers needed to implement them. Thus, Zambia expects to increase its output of trained graduate and non-graduate teachers from eight in 1962-3 to sixty in 1965-6, but even so will be obliged to recruit about one hundred and ten secondary school teachers from outside the country. In Tanganyika, where the Government has also stated that 'at this stage, the greatest need is for a considerable expansion of secondary education' (The Development Plan for Tanganyika, ig6i/ 2-^63/4), tne recent Unesco Report emphasizes that the country will be dependent for a considerable period of time on the recruitment of qualified secondary school teachers from abroad. 16 Moreover the tendency to appoint such staff on short term contracts may have serious disadvantages from an educational point of view. In Tanganyika, for example, it is expected that the annual turnover of staff may rise to 50 per cent, or more and it is hardly conceivable that any secondary school can be successful in setting high standards of learning, integrity and responsibility when such a high proportion of the staff serve on a temporary basis.*

ENROLMENTS

IN

SECONDARY GRAMMAR SCHOOLS

In most Commonwealth countries in Africa, there is a wide discrepancy between the number of pupils enrolled in the first year in the secondary school and the number who stay to complete the course. An example of the extent and stage at which most wastage is likely to occur is given in the following table which shows enrolments in secondary schools in Tanganyika for the period 1958-61 * The staffing position in one girls' school (which is not exceptional) was as follows early in 1964. Total staff 18, of which 2 are men, 1 temporary and the other leaving in 1965. Of the women, 3 are African (of whom one is temporary), 5 are American (leaving 1964), 2 Canadian (leaving 1965) and 6 British (some of whom are expected to leave in 1964).

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL TABLE

III

Secondary School Enrolments

F01

Tanganyika

1959

ig6o

I

1,619

1,686

1,789

2,163

II

1,378

1,562

1,648

1,789

III

328

474

535

1,095

IV

J

3i8

478

687 (School Certificate)

92

in

166

V VI

ig6i

131 (Higher Certificate)

84

This situation small

in

1958

74

number

is

perhaps not as serious as

of pupils

who

government has now ceased

71

it

might appear from the

reach the sixth form, partly because the to attract pupils out of the secondary

schools for training as nurses, policemen, stenographers and teachers

and partly too, because the abolition of the Standard X examination has been followed by a significant increase in the number of pupils enrolled in Form III since 1961. There seems no reason, therefore, why the extent of wastage in secondary schools in Tanganyika or countries like Zambia (where many pupils leave the secondary school after two years for similar reasons) should not be considerably reduced once

a policy of full or 'through'

secondary education

is

adopted.

however, that so long as secondary schools continue perform the double function of preparing pupils for the School Certificate examinations and giving preparatory training for others who will enter employment, apprenticeship or training as teachers without taking the examination, enrolments will continue to reveal a It is evident,

to

proportionate amount of wastage.

The

table

on

p.

secondary schools

72 shows the

number

at different stages in

of pupils being educated in

the course.

From this, it will be seen that although there were some sixty-four thousand pupils enrolled in Class V of the primary schools of the Western Region (Nigeria) and nearly fifty-eight thousand pupils in Standard VI of the primary schools of the Eastern Region in 1959, the

was

number of grammar school places available for these candidates in the West five thousand nine hundred and eighty two and in the

East, five thousand five

hundred and

three. In fact, about 16 per cent.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

72

who completed primary education in the Western Region in 1959 and passed the primary school leaving Certificate

of the pupils

obtained places in a secondary school in i960.

TABLE Enrolments

in

IV

Government and aided Secondary Schools

in

Commonwealth

Countries in Africa

/

//

III

IV

V

VI

VII

928

680 201

405 96 625

in

253

47 487

85 21

— -

— -

5,584 i,537

4,307 i,336

3,169

72 814

38 5i7

3°3

164

-

Year and Country Basutoland (1962) Bechuanaland (1961)

Gambia (1963) Ghana (1964) Kenya (1962)

677

668

7,216

6,569

3,415

2,300

9,349 8,923

J 57 5,204

2,955

838

7,952

4,655 6,95o

4,

Western (1962)

3,595

904

Northern (1962)

2,410

1,780

1,426

1,063

1,109

141

2,258

1,674

630 50

38

123

Nigeria

Eastern (1962)

5,669

666

Zambia (1962) Malawi (1962) Sierra Leone (1963)

i,H4

717

395 373

3,091

2,380

i,5 l6

724

235 2j8 958 386

Rhodesia (1963) Swaziland (1962) Tanganyika (1961)

3,407 1,083

2,447

548

293

57

4,810

2,908

Uganda

1,189

3,982 1,048

859

(1961)

Note. Figures in

italics are for

the

number

61

H

721

222

45

63

-

i,990

18 286

199

788

133

91

257 66

139

"

of pupils in the School Certificate

classes.

The figures under year III for Zambia show the number enrolled in the 'remove' class which lasts for half a year owing to the C.O.S.C. falling in the middle of the academic year; the senior secondary course accordingly begins in August in year III. is provided in grammar schools (59 961) which offer a five-year course as in Nigeria leading to the West African School Certificate. Twenty-two secondary schools were

In Ghana, secondary education

in

1

offering a sixth for the

A

level

in 1962, from which pupils were entered examination of the General Certificate of Education

form course

of the University of

London. In Sierra Leone similarly, pupils follow W.A.S.C. and one hundred and forty-six

a five-year course to the

pupils were enrolled in sixth forms in i960.

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

73

In the countries of East and Central Africa, secondary education

is

provided in senior secondary schools offering a four-year course which prepares pupils for the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate

and the junior secondary schools which originally provided the first two years of a six-year secondary course in Uganda, are now being absorbed as 'higher-tops' into primary schools. In each of these

TABLE v (Quoted from 'Final Report, Conference of African States', (Unesco) 1961 Table I, Educational Situation in Africa Today.)

Country

Estimated

Ratio of enrol-

population

Number of

15-19 years

ment adjusted to 1 5-1 9 for duration

students

('ooo)

school

Basutoland

(1958)

3>°42

67

Bechuanaland

(1958)

485

Ghana Kenya

(1959)

178,581

34 506

29'4

('958)

20,291

Mauritius

(1958)

18-1

Nigeria (Lagos)

(1958)

16,243 6,37 6

654 64

N. Region W. Region E. Region N. Rhodesia Nyasaland S. Rhodesia S. Leone

(1958)

8,098

(1958)

73,282

(1958)

29,658

(1958/59)

4>948

(1958)

3.042

(1958)

6,485

Swaziland

J 959) (1958)

8,277 1,066

Tanganyika

(1958)

i5>3i5

247 27 918

Uganda

(

Zanzibar

(1958)

41.633 1,232

671 3i

(

J

959)

4*5 i'4 3 '9

35 1,858

15-2

694 816

8-8

237 279 672

0-3

3 -o

2-6 i-4

3-0 2-8 4'5 2-1

4 '4 5-0

countries particular emphasis is now being laid on the development of post-School Certificate work; in Kenya, one hundred and sixty-six pupils were enrolled in sixth forms in 1961, and in Uganda, four

hundred and fifty in 1963; in Tanganyika, one hundred and ninetywere enrolled in classes preparing for the Higher School Certificate in i960; in Zambia, fifty-six pupils were enrolled in courses leading to the Higher School Certificate in i960 and in five pupils

Rhodesia, fifty-eight in 1962.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

74

This

is

the pattern of secondary education in the three High

Commission

Territories too. Hitherto, high schools in these countries

have provided

post-primary education up to the examinBoard of the South African Univer-

five years of

ation of the Joint Matriculation

As the Junior Certificate has been discontinued and National Examinations are no longer open to all candidates in High Commission Territories, the Territories have now established their own Junior Certificate examination, and Swaziland proposes to introduce the G.C.E. O level course in certain schools in 1963. sities.

The

estimated proportion of pupils in second-level schools accord-

ing to statistics supplied to Unesco for the Conference of African States in 1961

is

shown

in

Table V.

ENROLMENTS IN MODERN AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS Two significant developments in the field of post-primary

education

have been the provision of modern schools in Western Nigeria and middle schools in Ghana. The first is avowedly an alternative form of secondary education, parallel to the grammar school but offering a shorter course (three years in all), and the second, though at present functioning as an intermediate school from which pupils are selected for the secondary school, seems likely to develop also as an alternative form of secondary education. The number of pupils enrolled in these schools is given below

TABLE

VI

Enrolments in Secondary Modern Schools {Western Nigeria, 1962) and Middle Schools {Ghana, 1959)

(a)

Schools

(b)

Class I

Class II

Class III

Boys

29,070

27,834

18,769

Girls

15,536

n,957

7,1*7

Secondary Modern

Middle Schools*

Form I

Form II

Boys

30,236

Girls

J

28,399 11,196

* Total

60,908

(II),

3,457

enrolements in middle schools had 54,936 (III), and 39,722 (IV).

risen

Form

HI

Form IV 19,590

23,937 7,462 by 1964

5,707 to

67,240

(I),

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

75

SELECTION FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION In most Commonwealth countries, selection of pupils for places in grammar schools has now become a serious educational problem, numbers of pupils number of schools, and

partly because of the considerable

seeking ad-

mission to a relatively small

partly, too,

because of the various procedures used. In 1958 for example, nine thousand candidates competed for one hundred and forty- places in three schools in the Eastern Region of Nigeria, and in i960, the

number of application forms sent out had risen to twenty-four thousand for the same number of places. In Ghana, Gambia. Sierra Leone and the Eastern and Western Regions of Nigeria, Government secondary schools use the Common Entrance examination of the West African Examinations Council, an examination which has also been used as a pattern by many voluntarv agency schools, e.g. in the Eastern Region. There is, however, considerable variation between the procedures used in non-government schools which are free to prescribe their own requirements and in some areas where the pressure on the schools is especially great, a particular pupil

may

sit

for five or six examinations in his last year at

the primary school.

The W.A.E.C. Common Entrance examination

consists of

two

papers each in English and arithmetic and a general paper of questions in history,

geography and rural science and

it

would probably be

a

considerable advantage to the schools, primary as well as secondary, if all selection procedures were based on an examination of this kind, which has been standardized and most of which can be marked objectively.* There are other ways, too, in which the mechanics of selection could be readily improved; the Conference on Educational and Occupational Selection in West Africa recommended for example that all selection procedures should be organized round a Common Entrance examination administered on fixed dates and controlled by a Board on which the secondary schools would be seated. It also recommended that boys and girls should take the gh their marks should be considered same examinations ti

separately. 17

As for the examination itself, the Conference felt that it might be divided with advantage into two parts. Part I of which would be a screening test in English and general ability administered to all *

-.

D. W., for an appraisal of

I•.: ;

'objective''

ft qf papers v

Language

AFRICAN EDUCATION

76

candidates and of the objective type which can be marked quickly the main examination would include tests in arith-

while Part II

—

—

metic, English, a general paper and an essay.

There is little doubt, too, that the selection procedure would be more effective if head teachers of primary and middle schools were given information which would enable them to advise pupils on the secondary schools to which they were most likely to gain admission, and likewise, if some means existed for passing information about individual pupils from the head of these schools to the heads of secondary schools. As for the weight to be given to these various sources of information, the Conference recommended that secondary schools should place greater reliance on the results of the examination and should select their candidates on this evidence rather than on the interview which should be used only to obtain information about identity, age, facility in English and relevant aspects of the candidate's personality.

In other Commonwealth countries in Africa, the selection examinais commonly organized by an officer of the Ministry of Education. In Kenya for example, the Examinations Section of the Ministry of Education is responsible for the Kenya Preliminary examination for African schools an examination which is taken at the end of the primary (formerly intermediate) course, for tion for secondary schools

—

which

a certificate

is

awarded and which serves

as a qualifying

examination for secondary education. 18 In Tanganyika, the General Entrance Examination is organized by the Examinations Officer of the Ministry of Education and papers are set in English, mathematics

and general knowledge; the examination is conducted on a regional basis and regional selection boards nominate candidates on the basis of these results to places in secondary schools, training colleges and trade or technical schools. 16 Similarly in Zambia, a Secondary Selection Examination (also controlled

by the Ministry) was introduced

papers in English, arithmetic and pupils' intelligence differs in character

'a

in 1959, consisting of

special paper designed to test the

and suitability for further academic studies'. This from the Standard VI examination which was

previously used to select pupils for secondary schools because essentially

competitive examination whereas the

a

examination

is

the Standard

attainment

it is

Standard VI

designed as a test of attainments. 19 In Malawi likewise,

VI examination (which served

at the

until recently as a test of

end of eight years' primary schooling and

of selecting pupils for the secondary school)

is

as a

means

conducted by the

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

77

Primary School Examinations Board, with which the Ministry of Education is connected. 11 Criticism of the selection procedure in these countries appears to be directed principally at (a)

the use of a leaving examination intended to assess pupils'

attainments at the end of the primary school course for a quite different

purpose

—to determine their

suitability for education

Kenya and Malawi); questions in some papers. The

in a secondary school (in (b)

the unsuitability of the

Committee of Inquiry

Phillips

Nyasaland felt that 'probably the reason for asking the children in the Standard VI examination to write about such subjects as "the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations", "the International Bank", "the international civilizations around the Mediterranean", "what is democracy?", "chlorophyll" and "capillary attraction", is based on the fallacious assumption that the harder the questions at any entrance examination the greater the selective power of that examination is likely to be. In general, this examination tests, not the pupils' ability and understanding but their memory and factual knowledge' 11 the failure to obtain more information about the pupils in other ways; Tn the standard VI examination a personal interview of the pupils by the heads of the secondary schools forms no part. Nor are the opinions of the pupils' own headmasters and class teachers on their suitability for promotion ever sought.' 11 In Tanganyika too, the Unesco Planning Mission observed that 'The examination in its present form is a somewhat blunt instrument for the purposes of selection; it should be improved as soon as possible' (Report of Planning Mission for in

;

(c)

Tanganyika, p. 67).

In Swaziland, these criticisms appear to be fully met by the made in a recent report on 'The reorganization of secondary education in Swaziland' (June iq62). 2{) This report notes that it has not been the practice in the past for European children to take any

proposals

formal entrance test to the secondary school but

European schools come on

'as

the African and

to similar ladders at thirteen years,

it

will

common entrance examination to the secondary many ways in which the selection can be done (says

be necessary to have a school.

There

are

the report) but experience and research in other parts of Africa that well-constructed tests of English

master's report in standard form, are

and arithmetic plus

among

show

a head-

the best predictors of

AFRICAN EDUCATION

78

future success in the secondary school. Because standards independent of each school have to be ensured,

it is suggested that the examinand arithmetic should be under the jurisdiction of the Education Department though the results of these examinations should be included along with other results furnished by the school, in the leaving certificate issued at the end of primary education' (p. 15). Nor would there be any need, according to the report, to have two separate examinations at the end of the primary level, one for entrance to secondary school and the other for the leaving

ations in English

certificate.

As more

become available for one kind or another of seems clear that the emphasis will shift from selection to allocation; and indeed, this tendency is already evident in those countries of West Africa where a substantial proportion of the pupils who have successfully completed a primary school course may expect to obtain a place in a secondary school. In Ghana, middle school places were available for all those pupils from primary class six who sought entry during the period 1958 onwards; in Western Nigeria, following the proposals of the Banjo Commission, children who have successfully completed a primary school course would be promoted to a junior secondary school organized on a comprehensive basis, where their suitability for further study in a senior secondary school would be judged by the aptitudes and interests shown during the first and second years. The Review of the Educational System of Eastern Nigeria made similar proposals according to which 'admission to a lower secondary school would be upon a simple qualifying test and would eventually have no competitive element in it at all'. Under such conditions selection may be replaced by orientation over a period of two or even three years so permitting the choice of subjects and courses which a pupil may take to be based on careful observation and a diagnosis of the pupil's interests and abilities over opportunities

secondary education,

it

a fairly long period. Orientation accordingly permits

some account

be taken of changes in a pupil's attitudes and the development of his abilities during his attendance at the secondary school and it is clearly to be preferred to selection on both social and educational grounds. to

As

yet, there are

few Commonwealth countries in Africa where the

secondary education are sufficiently extensive to make such procedures practicable and in the majority, it must be assumed that promotion to the secondary school will continue to be determined facilities for

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

79

on the results of an examination. Where selection is inevitable, it seems clear that the interests of the pupil as well as the schools will be best served by an examination devised specifically for the purpose of

Common Entrance examination of the

selection, standardized like the

W.A.E.C. and conducted under comparable conditions schools of the area where promotions are taking place.

in

all

the

EXAMINATIONS IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL (a)

The School

The

Certificate

and

the

Higher School Certificate

principal examinations in the secondary schools are the School

Certificate

and the Higher School

Certificate,

both of which are

administered either by the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate or in

West Africa, by

The School

the

West African Examinations Council. is commonly regarded as the leaving who have completed the grammar school

Certificate

examination for pupils

course and the regulations under both bodies are broadly similar.

Candidates are required to offer a

minimum

of six subjects (including

English Language) chosen from three groups and certificates are classified in three

divisions (Division I for five credits or more,

Division II for four credits and Division III for the candidates with a

must be credits).* In all grammar schools after increasing rapidly each year and the

pass in at least five subjects of which two countries, the

number

of pupils staying in

taking the School Certificate

is

majority of these become candidates for the Higher School Certificate

examination which istic

is

normally taken two years

later.

The

character-

features of the School Certificate examination are (a) the group

requirement

—the subjects of the examination are grouped

as general

and crafts and technical and commercial subjects and a candidate must offer a minimum of five subjects taken from three of these groups and (b) the minimum number of subjects in which a pass must be obtained at one and the same examination. subjects, languages, mathematical subjects, sciences, arts

—

(b)

The General

Certificate of Education

Candidates may also enter for the General Certificate of Education in any Commonwealth countrv where an examination centre has been approved. In West Africa this examination has until recently been taken almost exclusively by 'private' candidates, that

is,

candidates

* This is only one of the criteria, however, by which success in the examination is determined. See Regulations and Syllabus for the Joint Examination for the W.A.S.C. and G.C.E. (1965).

AFRICAN EDUCATION

80

who are not in attendance at recognized educational institutions but who pursue their studies privately, often with the help of correspondence courses. In Ghana. Gambia and Sierra Leone however the School Certificate will cease to be awarded, and from 1965 candidates will be allowed to enter for the General Certificate of Education in whatever subjects they want without any restriction regarding

minimum entry or grouping.

In Nigeria, as in

many

countries served

by the Cambridge Syndicate, a General Certificate of Education is awarded only to candidates who pass in at least three subjects. At the higher level the General Certificate of Education (A level) examination is taken by school candidates in Ghana, Gambia and Sierra Leone while in Nigeria and countries served by the Cambridge Syndicate for the

(c)

(e.g.

East Africa), school candidates continue to be entered

Higher School

Certificate.*

Second- and third-year examinations

In some countries, a further examination is held in the middle of the secondary school course in Sierra Leone for example, it is felt that teachers and pupils benefit from the stimulus of an external assessment during the period of the School Certificate course (which lasts ;

five years)

and pupils

in secondary schools

now

take the

Form

III

Certificate examination during their third year in the secondary

school. 21

In Kenya, however, the practice of holding a public examination at the end of the second year of the secondary course was discontinued in 1956 and all pupils now proceed without a break from Form I to Form IV; and in Nyasaland too the recommendation has been made that the Standard VIII examination should be discontinued in the secondary school on the grounds that there ought not to be any further selection for the upper forms of the secondary school at so late a stage. 11

The case for an examination (which would certainly seem to be an unnecessary break in a course of study leading to the School Certificate) must probably rest on the need which still exists in some countries for an intermediate qualification and indeed, this is the function of examinations such as the Form II Certificates in Zambia, the Junior Certificate in Rhodesia (taken after two years' secondary

education) and the

High Commission

Territories' Junior Certificate

(taken after three years' secondary schooling) in Basutoland, Bechua-

naland and Swaziland. * Changes 1964 June).

in examinations for

West African Secondary Schools.

J.

Deakin (W.A.J.E.

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL (d)

8l

Examinations in other secondary schools

In Western Nigeria, a Secondary Modern School Leaving Certificate was established in 1957 under the direction of the Ministry of Education for which any pupil could enter in his third year in the modern school. The compulsory subjects are English, arithmetic, history, geography and civics, and optional subjects which have also been approved (in particular schools) are home economics, rural science, religious knowledge and commercial subjects. Certificates are awarded in three classes and have been quickly recognized as a qualification for various kinds of employment (e.g. as clerical assistants in the Regional Government sendee). In Ghana, the Middle School Leaving Examination is taken by pupils in the last year of the middle school course set a

;

its

purpose

to

is

standard of attainment for middle school education and to

provide a nationally recognized qualification. recently been divided into two parts, the objective tests in English

The examination

first

has

of which consists of

and arithmetic so enabling

it

to

be used as an

entrance examination for candidates seeking places in the following

term in Junior Technical

Institutes.

The Middle School Leaving

Certificate indicates that the holder has

education and

may be

considered a

completed ten years' formal

minimum

qualification

for

comparatively unskilled occupations (in factories, workshops, stores

and business houses). It also gives some indication of the ability of an employee to profit from training or apprenticeship many thousands of pupil-teachers employed in the primary schools for example are holders of the Middle School Certificate. :

(e) Critique

of examinations

these examinations, English

In

all

in

which

failure

may

is

the

medium and

also the subject

lead to failure in the whole examination. It

hardly surprising then that the concern which has been

felt

is

about the

form of the examinations and the influence which they have on the schools should have focused more particularly on the questions and the marks awarded in English. The principal grounds for criticism appear to be that: (a)

an unreliable guide to the candidate's In West Africa for example, the universities are dissatisfied with the low standard of English of many entrants who have scored reasonable marks in the the examination proficiency

in

is

English.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

82

School Certificate examination but are handicapped by their with understanding or to write clearly

inability to read (b)

teachers feel they are not sure what the examination to measure.

Again

in

unhappy about some

West

is

seeking

Africa, teachers are apparently

aspects of the School Certificate syllabus

and 'are puzzled on occasion by rather odd results' (Report 22 of an Inquiry into English Language Examining, p. 22) the examination in English Language may be an artificial barrier to the progress of pupils whose performance in other subjects is wholly satisfactory. It is felt therefore that examination in English Language may be an obstacle to the progress of countries which need as many professionally qualified ;

(c)

people as they can get. It

seems probable that

at least

some

of these and further criticisms

of detail (see Report, p. 23) might be met ation were more clearly defined and the

if

the scope of the examin-

form of question modified so to provide more reliable information on specific language skills. It would be helpful for example if (i) the assessment of candidates by essay could be based on two compositions on topics of different kinds, (ii) one of these topics were made compulsory for all candidates, the material required being provided on the question paper, and (iii) if the composition paper included a test of letter-writing. Other ways in which it has been recommended that the scheme of examination in English Language might be made more relevant to the needs of African countries are that the present precis test be replaced by a test requiring a summary of the main ideas in a passage and that in addition, two passages should be set as a test of comprehension with a number of multiple-choice objective items set on each. In addition, it is recommended that control of grammatical structure and lexis be tested by means of objective tests based on a detailed syllabus and that a compulsory oral test be introduced as soon as practicable.

THE SCHOOL AND SOCIETY Secondary schools commonly have fewer relations with the community than primary schools, no doubt because most if not all of their pupils are boarders and have no relatives living near the school. Yet a fundamental aim of the secondary school is to prepare its pupils as directly as possible for living in an adult society and it is hardly possible for the school to do this unless it shows pupils what their responsibilities are and gives them opportunities of discovering what

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL

83

form they may take. Close and cordial contacts between the school and society would seem then to be one of the conditions of effective education and one which could be particularly fruitful with the more mature pupils of the secondary school. In several countries, the need for closer personal ties not only between the school and the community but between the school and parents and between staff and pupils, has become dramatically evident in the last few years in quite other ways. In one area after another, disturbances have broken out in secondary schools for apparently trivial reasons which, so it appeared on fuller inquiry, were the practical

more general malaise. which occurred in Zambia may be taken as similar

symptoms

The

of a

indiscipline

six senior schools in

March

in type to disturbances which i960 in have occurred in Rhodesia (1962), in Swaziland (in i960) and in Uganda (in 1959). It took the form of defying school authority by making noisy demonstrations, singing political songs, shouting political slogans

and intimidating fellow pupils who expressed un-

popular views. Three of the schools were closed and reopened

some months later with a new intake of pupils and a considerable number of students were expelled from the other three. The Commission of Inquiry which reported on these disturbances in August i960 found that the only grievance which had any substance was the dullness and inadequacy of the food. It accepted the view that

main cause of the outbreaks of indiscipline was 'a confused and sometimes misguided enthusiasm for African nationalism due to the tense political atmosphere at the time' but its recommendations bear almost wholly on the ways in which a feeling of respect and confidence may be developed between pupils and staff. 23 Members of the staff are urged, for example, 'to mix freely with the boys after school, guiding, encouraging and advising them' and also to associate more closely among themselves. 'Members of staff should enjoy on a basis of equal qualifications, character and ability, equivalent conditions of service, salary and accommodation.' The Commission was surprised 'at the apparent lack of interest shown by parents or guardians of the students who were expelled' and felt that parents should be closely associated with the life of their children at school. 'A report should be sent to the parent at least once a year informing him generally of his son's progress academically, his conduct and his prospects.' Within the school, the Commission recommended the general adoption of the house system. 'A school should be divided into

the

AFRICAN EDUCATION

84

houses with a house master and an assistant house master allotted to and it should be their duty to get to know and obtain the confidence

it

of the boys of that house. Each house should have a house captain appointed by the house master from amongst the prefects in the

house. There should also be a house committee elected by the students each year.

The

selection of the prefects should be the sole

responsibility of the principal in consultation with his staff; the greatest care

should be

must be exercised

made

as

compulsory

in the choice of prefects.

as possible

Games

and every encouragement

should be given to inter-house and inter-school sport. Leisure time should be fully employed.' Finally, the

Commission recommends

that

no student should join under pain

a political party or attend political meetings during term,

of expulsion, and that politics should not be discussed in the debating

'We are satisfied that one cannot mix work and politics. There is time enough for politics when the student leaves school. Care must be taken to avoid colouring information material with anything that might be regarded as political propaganda.' In the schools to which this Report refers it would seem then that there was little contact between staff and pupils or between members of the same staff. Under such conditions it can hardly have been societies.

.

.

.

possible to educate pupils to a sense of loyalty either to school or to

—

community a situation which must have given added significance to any tenseness in the political situation. This is no doubt a conclusion of some importance to teachers in secondary

ideals of service in the

schools elsewhere for disturbances of a very similar kind have

occurred in secondary schools in other countries in Africa.

No

school

can claim to educate, whatever its examination successes, if it does not teach its pupils to understand the values of society and their own responsibility for maintaining them, and this, it seems, is its paramount aim, however great the present need for instruction may seem to be.

Secondary education

ment only

is

in a majority of the is

this the stage

now the focal area of educational developCommonwealth countries in Africa. Not

where the

vastly increased

administrators and teachers

whom

numbers of junior

independence has be needed, must receive their preparatory training but it is here too that specialized preparation must be given (in many schools, at a higher level than has been attempted hitherto) to those pupils who are expected to obtain places in the new universities of Africa. civil servants,

shown

to

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL One

85

of the consequences, moreover, of the rapid expansion which has

taken place in education at the primary stage, standards of attainment

now

is the sharp rise in expected in other forms of post-primary

training; training courses for agricultual assistants, veterinary assist-

and teachers may now make a School two years' secondary schooling a minimum requirement for acceptance, a requirement which though welcome on educational grounds, substantially increases the pressure on the ants,

assistant

foresters,

Certificate or at least

existing provision for secondary education. It is for

such reasons that a number of countries have already

prepared Development Plans in which priority has been given to the expansion of secondary education, a decision which has inevitably caused some to consider afresh the form in which secondary educa-

may be given. Secondary schools which offer an alternative to the academic tradition of the grammar school, are already solidly established in Ghana and Western Nigeria and the number of 'modern classes' in Uganda is increasing. Proposals have been made for the establishment of junior secondary schools in two Regions of Nigeria which, if implemented, will make three years' secondary education available in the day schools to any pupil who has successfully completed primary schooling and can pay the fees. Other countries, unable to contemplate as yet the formidable expenditure demanded by such a diversity of secondary education, are concentrating on the expansion of secondary education in grammar schools and on the development of alternatives within the grammar school to the academic course which it normally offers. Such changes in the scope and organization of secondary education may be expected to lead to substantial changes, too, in the quality and kind of education which the secondary schools can give. Until tion

most of the grammar schools in Commonwealth countries were single-stream schools offering few opportunities for the organization of teaching in groups or sets. Moreover the practice of annual promotions encouraged the use of lock-step methods where it has been difficult to adjust teaching to individual variations of ability. The doubling or trebling of classes, which is a feature of most development plans, gives secondary schools the opportunity to recently,

in Africa

organize teaching in streams, so enabling different types of course

—

academic commercial or technical to be provided and greater attention to be paid to each pupil's needs. Changes have also been taking place in the social status of the secondary school which may be as important as any relating to its

AFRICAN EDUCATION

86

The achievement

organization.

of independence has underlined the

significance of the secondary school as a vital part of the national

equipment and one which both political leaders and public believe should be explicitly concerned with the national purpose. This means that the school should have much closer contacts with the community than most grammar schools have had in the past; indeed,

it seems should make a conscious attempt to interest the community in what they are trying to do. It also means

essential that secondary schools

that the school will need to as a

member

show

of society; there

is

a much greater concern for the pupil an evident need, for example, for the

secondary school to develop syllabuses, which are directly related to the careers pupils can take up when they leave the secondary school. Such changes in the social status and function of the secondary school are perhaps the most significant of all for no school can hope to educate that does not reflect the ambitions as well as the traditions of the society

it

serves.

REFERENCES i.

J. A. O. The Aims of Secondary EducaWestern Nigeria (extracts from an address in W.A.J.E., June

Odebiyi, Chief the honourable tion in

M.

Physical maturing and behaviour at adolescence (National

2.

Tanner,

3.

Convocation Lecture, 1958). Ministry of Education Western Region. Triennial Report on Education

4.

(1955-8) (Government Printer, Ibadan, 1959). Ministry of Education, Ghana. Education Report for Years 1958-60

J.

Children's

Home

(Accra, 1962). 5.

M. Report on Investigation of Vocational Education in Eastern Nigeria (Government Printer, Enugu, 1962).

Goldway,

7.

Ministry of Education, Uganda Protectorate. Annual Report (1961) (Government Printer, Entebbe). Floud, J., Halsey, A. H., and Martin, F. M., Social Class and Educ-

8.

Government of Western

6.

(Heinemann, London 1957). Nigeria. Report of the Commission Appointed to Educational System of Western Nigeria (Government

ational Opportunity

Review

the

Printer, Ibadan, 1961). 9.

Ministry of Education, Eastern Nigeria. Report on the Review of the Educational System of Eastern Nigeria (Government Printer, Enugu, 1962).

10.

Unesco. Final Report of the Conference of African States on the Development of Education in Africa (Addis Ababa, 1961).

EDUCATION AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL 11.

.12.

87

Ministry of Education, Nyasaland. Committee of Inquiry into African Education (Government Printer, Zomba, 1962).

Ministry of Education, London. 25 Advisory Council for Education, Vol.

to I

18: Report of The Central (1959) (H.M.S.O., reprinted

i960). 13.

14.

15.

Government of Northern Rhodesia. Draft Development Plan for 1961-5 (Government Printer, Lusaka, 1962). Government of Western Nigeria. Western Nigeria Development Plan (ig62-8) (Government Printer, Ibadan). Federal Government of Nigeria. Federal Government Development Programme 1962-8 (Federal Printing Division Sessional Paper No. 1, Lagos).

16.

Unesco. Report of Educational Planning Mission for Tanganyika (1962)

17.

Taylor, A. Educational and Occupational Selection in West Africa

(Paris, 1962).

18.

19.

(Oxford University Press, 1962). Colony and Protectorate of Kenya. Education Department Triennial Survey (1958-60) (Government Printer, Kenya, 1961). Ministry of African Education, Northern Rhodesia. Triennial Survey (1958-60

inclusive).

A. The Reorganisation of Secondary Education in Swaziland (prepared at the request of the Resident Commissioner, June 1962).

20. Rogers, C.

Leone Government. Report on Education 1960-1 (Government Freetown 1961). Grieve, D. W. Report of an Inquiry into English Language Examinations

21. Sierra

Printer,

22.

(West African Examinations Council, 1963). 23. Ministry of African Education, Lusaka. Circular

on Commission of

Inquiry into Indiscipline in Schools. (Triermial Survey 1958-1960

Appendix

B).

recommended that all farm t (P- 55) The Education Commission (1965) schools except Wanraka should be closed and that four interdenominational farm schools should be established, providing a four-year course. development of Intermediate or Junior colleges has also f (p. 66) The been recommended in Kenya and Uganda (see Reports of Educational Commissions).

Further Education FURTHER EDUCATION: A DEFINITION Virtually all of the educational programmes after

he has

left

available to a pupil

the primary or secondary school are of a vocational

and professional kind, providing training

in crafts

and commerce,

courses for teachers in training colleges or advanced courses in universities leading to a professional qualification. Teacher-training

and university courses

—the

most important

fields of educational

—are supported by

far more developed programmes of study than any other educational programmes as yet available for the older or more mature student and have accordingly been considered separately (see chapters V and VI). Although the bulk of the educational opportunity provided in most

activity at the post-school level

countries in Africa at this stage has consisted of courses of training for a trade or vocation, the field of further education can evidently be

extended to cover a far greater diversity of educational activity than this. Indeed, it may be assumed to include all forms of education taken up after the pupil has ceased to attend the primary or the secondary school, whether they consist of vocational training in trade centres, technical schools and handicraft or domestic science centres; or further education of a general kind or even organized facilities for leisure and projects for community development. One of the consequences of the policy of establishing programmes of education in primary and secondary schools which are essentially liberal in concept and this is common to all Commonwealth countries has been that training for a trade or vocation has commonly been deferred to the years after leaving school. There is no legislative framework, however, to determine what falls within or without the field of 'further education', and in some countries courses which are clearly vocational in character have been developed in secondary schools. In Uganda, for example, secondary technical

—

—

all) offered a four-year course in the building trades, carpentry and joinery, brickwork, plumbing and electrical mainten-

schools (twelve in

FURTHER EDUCATION

89

motor vehicle mechanics and fitter according to the Annual Report 1 in Ghana, significant elements of craft training have been for 1 96 assimilated to the curriculum of the upper secondary schools and similar proposals have been made in Eastern Nigeria. 2 Despite these developments, in most Commonwealth countries, training for a trade or vocation is not usually begun until a pupil has completed a course of study in a primary or secondary school and, as has already been ance, the metal-work trades for

machinists and the commercial

arts,

1

noted, courses of a vocational kind at present constitute the greater part of all

programmes

of further education.

PRIORITIES IN FURTHER EDUCATION

The

principal industry in

all

Commonwealth

countries in Africa

agriculture. In Tanganyika, for example, industry contributed

£7 \

is

some

million in i960 and 1961 to the gross domestic product, but the

£80 million in 196 1 alone. 3 In Nigeria, three people out of every four work on the land and seventeen shillings out of every pound earned from Nigerian exports comes from agricultural products. 'Investment in agricultural improvement and agricultural sector contributed

Yet investment

agricultural education could double Nigeria's wealth. in agriculture

is

inadequate and

is

rarely in the public eye. Publicity

(and) we are in make recommendations about agricul-

goes to industrialization, construction and the like a

dilemma when we come

to

.

.

.

tural education because the chief weakness of the present

system

is

not

the agricultural schools but the reluctance of the students to go to

them.

It is scarcely

an exaggeration to say that the

effect of education,

from primary school to university, is to draw boys away from the farms to the towns and cities' {Investment in education, p. 21). 4 In the past, few Ministries of Education have been formally concerned with agriculture, such courses as are provided being commonly organized by a specialist department (the Department of Agriculture, for example) or as part of

community development

other Departments or Ministries

may be

projects, for

which

but whatever the agency by which they are provided there can hardly be any doubt that the provision of training schemes for young farmers must constitute an important part of any national programme of further responsible

;

education.

Many of the pupils now passing out of the national systems of primary and secondary education need guidance, too, in adjusting themselves to the tensions and demands of a wage-earning society. Such needs have been summarized elsewhere as 'first the task of

AFRICAN EDUCATION

90

helping young workers ... to find their

secondly the more

way

successfully in the adult

job of helping them to define a standard of moral values by which they can live after they have left

world

.

.

.

difficult

the sheltered world of school

them

to carry over into their

.

.

.

(and) thirdly, the task of helping

working

life

the pursuits and activities,

physical and athletic, which they practised at school and too often

abandon. Finally, there is the narrower sense' {Fifteen to eighteen, .

.

.

educational task in the

strictly 5

These are the kinds of problem which young adults face in adjusting themselves to a wageearning society anywhere in Africa and are another aspect of the kind of further education which may now need to be developed. Such examples seem to suggest the need for programmes of further education which are more comprehensive and diversified than any available at present and, as more resources become available p. 179).

for the expansion of education at this stage, for a reassessment of priorities for technical training in countries or regions

economy

where the

almost wholly agricultural.

is

TECHNICAL EDUCATION which are provided within the field of young adult at one of craftsman, a technician or a technologist. In some

All the various courses

technical education are intended to train the

three levels, as a

countries indeed, training at each level tion; the trade centre for

craftsmen

example

is

given in a separate institu-

will offer a training suitable for

and apprentices, the technical institute, courses for some craft courses as well) and universities,

technicians (and probably

training for technologists at the professional level.

Trade schools or trade centres

As a general rule, the trade school or trade commonly called today, offers courses in two bricklaying,

mechanics,

made

carpentry all

plus

it

is

more

machine-fitting or motor and arrangements are usually

joinery,

lasting three years,

for students

centre, as

or three subjects like

who complete

the course, to obtain posts in

more years. young craftsman for

industry where they receive in-service training for two

This period of supervised training full

qualifies the

apprenticeship status after five years of training, three in the

trade centre and two in industry.

The

expansion of craft training has

been consistently hindered, however, by the difficulty of finding employment for students where they can complete their apprenticeship after leaving the trade centre, and special arrangements have

FURTHER EDUCATION accordingly been

made

in

some countries

91 to

enable learners to

continue to qualify. In Kenya, for example, all trade trainees take the Grade III Trade Test conducted by the Trade Testing Section of the

Labour Department on the completion of

their course; in

Malawi,

who have completed the three-year course in carpentry may take a Grade III Test which is stand-

similarly, students

bricklaying or

ardized by the Labour Commissioner. Indeed, foreseeable

number

demand

of trade schools to limit

perhaps three subjects.

number

stantial

it

is

the lack of a

which has caused a the course they offer to two or

for trainees in industry

A

few, however,

may be

able to offer a sub-

of different courses like the trade centre at

(Eastern Nigeria) with

some ten courses and 140 students

Enugu

in 1959 or

the technical and trade school at Kabete (Kenya) with twelve courses

and some four hundred and eighty-six students reasonably sure that

all

students in

them

will

in i960 and be be able to find posts in

industry where they will be able to complete their apprenticeship.

The of

following table of courses proposed in the four trade centres

Western Nigeria

size as in the

for 1963,

shows how much centres may vary in

number and kinds

of course they offer

Oyo

Sapele

Oshogbo

Ijebu-Ode

(250 students)

(118 students)

(189 students)

(22 students)

Motor

Motor

Plumbers

Motor mechanics

Cabinet

General welder

mechanics Sheet metal

worker Electrical installations

mechanics Electrical installations Fitter/

machinist Painter/

Fitter

machinist

decorator

maker Coach builder

Carpenter/

Agricultural

mechanic Auto -electrician

joiner Bricklayer/

mason

General

moulder Carpenter/ joiner

Wood machinist Bricklayer/

mason Painter/

decorator

The

which students can be recruited has already been some countries by the general rise in standards among primary school-leavers. Trade centres which have regularly recruited level at

affected in

AFRICAN EDUCATION

92

now find who have com-

pupils on the completion of six years in the primary school that they are able to

fill

their vacancies with pupils

pleted Standard VIII and as the

primary education increases,

this

number seems

of pupils completing full likely to

general standard of entry in the future. In

Kenya

become

a

more

the educational

standard required for admission to a technical and trade school is a pass in the K.A.P.E. but as the number of applicants greatly exceeds

number of places available, only the most promising pupils can be admitted. In Tanganyika similarly, only boys who have completed eight years' general education are admitted to the trade school at Moshi.* Experience shows, moreover, that the majority of pupils with only six years' primary schooling to their credit, are insufficiently prepared for the kind of training which a trade centre is equipped to give and various procedures have been developed to meet this problem. In Ghana, for example, the former Government trade schools at the

Mampong, Tamale and Kpandu are now called Junior Technical Institutes and this change of title accords with the different type of course which they now offer. Candidates for the junior

Asuansi,

on the basis of the Middle School Leaving Examination, and may then take a pre-apprenticeship course which provides a programme of general education with a heavy technical bias (English, mathematics, elementary science, geometrical and technical drawing, woodwork and metal- work). Two year craft courses are also provided within the junior technical institute for selected candidates and are designed to offer further study of English and mathematics and specialized instruction in the technologies and practices of the various crafts and trades. Students who complete one of these courses may then enter industry or a Government department to complete their apprenticeship. The junior technical institute thus provides a preparatory course (for the middle school leaver) and for those who complete this successfully, a craft course for two further years. 6 In Uganda, a pre-technical course has been provided until recently for primary school pupils in technical schools similar in concept to the pre-apprenticeship course in Ghana but accepting candidates who have completed six years' primary schooling. The curriculum technical institute are selected

has hitherto consisted of English, arithmetic, science with a bias

towards mechanics and general physics, history and geography, *

The

1964.

trade centre at Ifunda

became

civics,

a technical secondary school in January

FURTHER EDUCATION

93

and handicrafts, the emphasis falling on English, arithmetic and handicrafts; these courses have now been reorganized to enable selected schools to concentrate on a four-year course in building trades, carpentry plus joinery, brickwork, plumbing and electrical maintenance, metal-work trades (for motor-mechanics and fittermachinists) or the commercial arts. In Rhodesia, as in Ghana, junior technical courses are now being art

established in place of the three- or four-year trade course (four years

and carpentry) and while if they had passed the Standard VI examination (eight years' primary schooling), they are now urged to take a Junior Certificate course which includes mathematics, chemistry, biology and a course in agriculture." In addition to the trade centres administered by governments, industrial concerns in most Commonwealth countries in Africa have established vocational schools which increase substantially the total amount of technical training available. As an example, more than for agriculture, three (or four) for building

candidates have hitherto been accepted

double the number of pupils trained in the Government trade centre Enugu (Nigeria) receive training in courses organized by com-

at

mercial undertakings; a three-year course

is

provided

at

Port Har-

court by Shell-B.P. for eighty-seven boys, giving training for

fitters,

machinists, welders and diesel mechanics and leading to a City and

Guilds qualification; a training course established by the United in Enugu provides training as motor mechanics

Trading Company

for forty boys; a similar school maintained

Company

at

Aba

agency trade centre ters (one

by the United Africa

provides training for sixty-eight boys, the voluntary at

Ahiara provides courses for fitters and carpenin 1959) and another private insti-

hundred and sixteen

tution (the Institute of Radio Technology) offers training for one

hundred and

forty-six apprentices at Port Harcourt. It

too, that in countries

wide area

where

industrial

development

is

may

be noted

scattered over a

Tanganyika, for example), training 'on the job' is it can be given more expeditiously and more effectively in this way than in a centre. 3 A significant beginning has also been made in the development of vocational training for women. As examples, in Western Nigeria, three-year residential courses are offered in housecraft, needlework, dressmaking and machine embroidery at the Women's Occupational Centre at Abeokuta; in the Eastern Region, two-year courses have been held for women in the Occupational Centre at Aba, one for ex(as in

often preferred bv the larger industrial units because

secondary school pupils training to be secretaries and the other in

AFRICAN EDUCATION

94

dressmaking. In Ghana, some one hundred and forty Housecraft

Centres (serving two or more mixed schools) or Sections (attached to middle schools) provide introductory courses in housecraft, needlework and domestic science from which successful

fully enrolled girls'

now

more advanced courses

(in domestic subjects) Takoradi or Kumasi. In Uganda, fifteen post-primary housecraft centres have been opened, to some of which a third year of vocational training has now been added and in Basutoland, in addition to full-time courses in housecraft (four hundred and seventy-five women were enrolled in i960), a number of girls have now been enrolled in the two-year courses in spinning and weaving. Those who successfully complete the course are loaned a spinning wheel, a loom and a pair of carders to set up home units. As a general practice, trainees who have completed a full course in a trade centre (junior technical institutes in Ghana and Rhodesia) and their apprenticeship, may be assumed to be competent craftsmen who are able to apply their manual skill in production or in the maintenance of equipment in which they have been trained. In most countries, the existing provision for training at this level appears to be sufficient, so far as can be judged from the number of students that can be absorbed by industry at its present level of development. The total number of trade centres and students enrolled is small compared with the populations they serve but the total provision for training at this level is appreciably greater in a number of countries than is suggested by the following list of Government centres.

students

pass to

in Technical Institutes at Accra,

;

Government Trade Centres or Junior Technical Basutoland

Lerotholi Artisan

Training Centre

(1962)

Bechuanaland

Ghana

(1961)

(1959)

organization

Gaberones

Building, carpentry, motor-

Bathurst

mechanics Metal work and engineering

(1962)

Gambia

Institutes

Closed in 1961 pending re-

Technical School (projected) Pre-technical (106) Asuansi J. T. I.

106

Mampong

Pre-technical (65) Building trades (57)

Tamale

Pre-technical (66) Mechanical engineering (54) Building trades (26) 146

Kpandu

Pre-technical (82)

122

Mechanical engineering (38)

Building trades (73)

193

FURTHER EDUCATION Kenya

(1961)

Kabete T. T.

S.

95

Carpenters (58)

masons

(53) painters (26)

plumbers

(20)

electricians (22) fitters (21)

farm mechanics (46) shoemakers (19) tailors (23)

sheet metal-workers (21) clerical trainees (28)

secondary technical for

G.C.E. (149)

Thika

480

Carpenters (119)

masons (120) painters (12)

plumbers (11)

2JI

tailors (9)

Nyanza

Carpenters (92)

masons

(98)

painters (17) fitters (6)

tailors (26)

sheet metal-workers (28)

Kwale

Carpenters (57)

Machakos

Carpenters (48)

masons masons

10/

(50)

(45)

painters (4)

Malawi (1961)

26y

Blantyre

Commercial Course

Soche

Motor mechanics

97 120

(16)

fitters (11)

electricians (14)

mathematics (17) English (19) Nigeria (Eastern, J

959)

Enugu*

77

Fitters (12)

cabinet-makers

(8)

carpentry (8)

motor-mechanics (36) Minister of Education in the Eastern Region has now announced plans to establish twenty-four more trade schools, of which five will be established at once (1964). Most of the places in these schools will be reserved for day students and any student of outstanding ability will be able to transfer at the end of the first year to a secondarv technical or commercial school. *

The

AFRICAN EDUCATION

96 Nigeria (Eastern,

Enugu

cont.

sheet metal-workers (17)

blacksmith (17)

1959)

wood-machinist (14) electricians (10)

bricklayers (15) painters (8)

Nigeria (Western,

145

Motor-mechanics, sheet

Sapele

metal-workers,

1963)

electricians,

moulders,

carpenters, machinists, bricklayers, painters

Oshogbo

250

Motor-mechanics, electricians, fitters,

118

painters

Ijebu-Ode

Plumbers, cabinet-makers, coachbuilders, carpenters, bricklayers

Oyo

189

Motor-mechanics, welders, agricultural mechanics, auto-electricians

Nigeria

(Northern, 1961)

Rhodesia (1962)

Sierra

Leone

(1961)

Three trade centres

Fitters, carpenters,

motor-

one each in Ilorin, Kano and Plateau

workers, electricians and

provinces

bricklayers

mechanics, sheet metal-

624

Post-primary

Agriculture (539) industrial schools building (63)

(now replaced by

carpentry (73)

J.T.Ls)

hygiene (39)

Freetown

1

Kenema

j

714

Mechanical engineering (i 4 6)

carpentry (53)

masonry

(20)

commercial (209) pre-apprentice (100) painting/decorating (7)

Swaziland (1962)

Mbabane

Building, carpentry,

Tanganyika

Ifunda*

Carpenter (115)

motor-mechanics

(1961)

Moshi

mason

535 75

(93)

painter (70)

is

* Courses now in progress at Ifunda will be the last trade courses as the centre being developed as a technical secondary school (1964).

FURTHER EDUCATION Moshi

Tanganyika

97

plumber

cont.

(72) electrician (76)

(i960

engine mechanic (314)

Uganda

Secondary

(1961)

Zambia (i960)

740

Carpentry, building,

tec.

schools (offering

brickwork, plumbing,

4-year trade

metal-work, commercial

courses)

arts.

392

Carpenters (565) Fourteen trade schools (normal bricklayers (447) strength 60 each)

TECHNICAL INSTITUTES The Report on High Level Manpower

1012

Requirements and Resources in

Tanganyika ig62-j* defines technical occupations as 'those filled by workers who work in direct support of and under the immediate

They

supervision of professional persons.

usually require at least

three years of progressive supervised training in the given technical field' (p.

19).

8

These are engineers

for example,

w ho w orking with r

T

the technologists and using their ideas, design the production plant

and

its

plant.

products and supervise the establishment and operation of the

They may be men with

degrees but are

more

likely to

be the

holders of Ordinary or Higher National Certificates or Ordinary or

Higher Overseas

Certificates of City

and Guilds of London

Institute

or equivalent qualifications.

Training

at this level is usually

provided in technical institutes

which offer advanced courses in subjects such as mechanical, electrical and civil engineering and in building. The courses are usually planned to lead to a qualification (such as the Ordinary and Higher National Certificate or Certificates of the City and Guilds Institute) which represents a standard of attainment well understood by employers.

The

link

w ith 7

a specific qualification

may

in ensuring the success of the course

:

also

be an important factor

the Ministry of Education in

Eastern Nigeria reported in 1958 for example that 'the commercial courses have proved popular because they prepare students for the

Royal Society of Arts examinations but the mechanical engineering it has not been concerned w ith preparation for a specific qualification' (Annual Report, 1958, p. 26). Candidates for training as technicians must usually have completed a secondary school course and hold a School Certificate or course has not been a success because

T

* See also International Standard Classification of Occupations (I.L.O., on which this definition has been based.

958),

r

Geneva,

AFRICAN EDUCATION

98

General Certificate of Education. In Ghana, the Senior Technical course which offers the technical knowledge and technician, lasts

two or three years and entry

of the School Certificate or students

is

skill

required by the

restricted to holders

who have

successfully completed Uganda, the aim of the Kampala Technical Institute is to offer electrical, building and mechanical technician courses at post-secondary level and courses with technical options leading to the G.C.E. advanced level examinations here too, it is intended that the Technical Institute shall be a one-year Junior Technical course. In

;

a full post-secondary institution.

A

similar standard of entry has been

recommended

courses in Zambia; 'the need for technician training

for technician is

thoroughly

appreciated in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), the problem

provide training

it. .

.

.

.

.

.

The

is

how

to

solution of this urgent problem of technician

should lead to the establishment of new institutions

giving industrial and commercial training to

all Northern Rhodesians (Zambians) alike and requiring from all entrants irrespective of race, a uniform educational standard which ought not to fall below a School Certificate which should not be an unduly high requirement' 9 (p. 21). Unfortunately, only three hundred and fifty-two candidates in Zambia obtained School Certificates in 1959, two hundred and forty from European schools and one hundred and twelve from African, and various ways have now been proposed for securing an

increase in the

One its

number

of the proposals

of entrants of technical institutes.

which the Ashby Commission put forward

in

suggestions for the expansion of technical education in Nigeria

(and which might be worthy of consideration in other countries where there is a similar shortage of technicians) was that technical institutes

pupil

should plan a special preliminary course to attract the able his course in the primary school but not

who had completed

had the opportunity of a secondary education.

A

characteristic of the courses offered in a

institutes is that they

may be

number

of technical

either full-time or followed

on

a part-

time basis, so allowing the candidate to continue his industrial training concurrently with his theoretical work. Part-time courses may be organized so that the student spends one or more full days in the Institute each

week on

a 'sandwich basis'; thus, the institute at

Enugu

(Eastern Nigeria) offered sandwich courses in 1958 in mechanical engineering and civil engineering (nine months' instruction

followed by fifteen months' practical and nine months more study) as well as evening courses in mechanical engineering and commerce.

FURTHER EDUCATION The

technical institute at

Yaba (Lagos)

in the

99

same year provided

courses offering similar opportunities for concurrent training in industry, as

may be

seen below:

Courses offered in the Technical Institute, Yaba, ig$8

Type of course

Enrolments

Full-time day: junior technical

238

school technical

174

Part-time day release

engineering and carpentry

80

printing

47 26

secretarial,

Evening

accounting

classes

mechanical and electrical engineering

201

building, carpentry, joinery

167 127

commercial subjects stenography

81

printing art

Most

6

and design

technical

institutes

42

are

broadly

constituted

and

lively

institutions offering a variety of courses besides those of a vocational

or technical character. Well-attended classes have been organized in

commercial subjects at the sub-professional level, in G.C.E. subjects who missed this opportunity at school and even in teacher-training for teachers of mathematics, science and technical subjects. In Ghana, the four Technical Institutes at Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi and Tarkwa provide courses in commercial subjects; in dressmaking and needlework, domestic cookery, housecraft and trade cooking; and also courses in technical teacher training. Special courses have also been arranged from time to time; three such courses were organized in Accra for example, in librarianship, journalism and banking. In Sierra Leone, likewise, the two technical institutes at Freetown and Kenema combine their functions for technical training with a number of wider responsibilities; in addition to courses in mechanical and electrical engineering, they offer instruction in commercial and domestic subjects and prepare students for the General Certificate of Education examinations at O and A level. for students

AFRICAN EDUCATION

100 In

many

commercial training at the sub-professional important a commitment as training of a technical

institutes,

level is quite as

kind. Indeed,

it is

on these

institutions that the

new

nations of Africa

and many now desperately needed to fill clerical and junior administraposts. The principal subjects in which training is needed appear

must

rely for the training of secretaries, book-keepers

others tive

to be English, shorthand, typewriting, office routine,

commercial and elementary law; in Nigeria for example, the Ashby Commission anticipated that the situation caused by the shortage of secretaries and book-keepers, already serious in 1959, would become desperate unless increasing numbers of schoolleavers, and particularly girls, were persuaded to take up this kind of work and it urged the adoption of special measures to attract students one means suggested by the Commission was that a number of secondary schools should offer a special one-year course in combook-keeping

arithmetic,

mercial subjects.

The need

for courses of training in

subjects at this level

is

great in

all

Africa and a considerable expansion

educational the

facilities

commercial and technical

the newdy independent countries of

must be anticipated

in all the

now provided by technical institutes. In Nigeria,

Ashby Commission

forecast the

need

for

no

less

than six institu-

some two and a half thousand technicians each year, all of which it recommended should be sited in large centres of population like Enugu, Ibadan, Kaduna, Benin City, Port Harcourt and Kano. Programmes of such size raise, in acute form, the problem of accommodation for it is hardly possible to envisage the

tions to provide a flow of

building of hostels as well as class-rooms and laboratories for the

numbers of students who will attend courses and any such would certainly delay the rapid development of the institutes. On this issue, it is noteworthy that the Ashby Commission recommended that 'most of the students should be expected to find their own lodging accommodation though institutes should have good catering facilities and offer a generous provision of working space where students can study in the evenings' (p. 97). Technical institutes which have been associated over the years with craft courses and technical training at a lower level, may have some large

intention

difficulty in winning recognition for their responsibility for training at the technical and sub-professional level indeed, their responsibilities ;

and higher commercial teaching could be overshadowed in the early years by the presence of more elementary courses. It may be of interest to note the steps by which one institute of this kind has

for technician

FURTHER EDUCATION

IOI

—

been brought to maturity the Technical Institute at Kampala, Uganda. In 1953, most of the resources for technical and commercial training in Kampala were provided by five government technical schools and one commercial college. A development programme was then prepared which, it was hoped, would enable these institutions to be developed and expanded sufficiently to meet Uganda's needs at the technician as well as at the artisan levels and this has been carried out in three stages (i) the creation of the Kampala Technical Institute by integrating the Kampala Technical School, the P.W.D. Engineering School and the Muljibhai Madhvani Commercial College, (ii) the creation of an additional technical school at Jinja, (hi) the formation of a pattern of technical education where all junior and senior trade work would be undertaken at up-country technical schools, so leaving the Institute free to concentrate on the training of technicians and on advanced trade and commercial work. 10

The though

future role of the Institute it

may be some time

is

now

clearly established, al-

before up-country schools are able to

it of all trade courses in mechanical and electrical engineering. be an independent institution with six main departments, the schools of building, of mechanical and electrical engineering and of commerce and three specialist sections, the industrial section, the women's studies section and the science and mathematics section and it will be responsible for the organization of all courses required by students who are aiming at a qualification at the sub-professional level. Most Commonwealth countries in Africa now have one or more technical institutes as the following list will show and others are

relieve It will

projected.

Technical Institutes

Ghana:

Kenva

in

Commonwealth Countries

in Africa,

ig6j

Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tarkwa.

Kenva

Polvtechnic,

Mombasa

Institute of

Education. Nigeria:

Enugu, Kaduna, Yaba.

Malawi Sierra Leone Tanganyika

Blantyre (projected)

Uganda

Kampala Technical

Zambia:

College of Further Education, Lusaka.

Freetown, Kenema. Dar es Salaam Technical College.

Hodgson Technical

Institute.

College, Lusaka.

Muslim

AFRICAN EDUCATION

102

VOCATIONAL TRAINING, PROPOSALS

SOME CURRENT PROBLEMS AND

Courses of vocational training,

it is

sometimes asserted, are longer

than they need to be and insufficiently adapted to the conditions of work for which they have been provided.

The young African who enters a Technical Institute with a W.A.S.C. for example cannot take his Ordinary National Certificate* till three years later and his Higher National Certificate for a further two years a total period of ten years from the time he entered the secondary school (five years secondary school and five years in the Technical Institute). There seems no reason, however, why a pupil

—

should not obtain a sufficient general preparation in a three-year course at the secondary level, such as has been envisaged in the reports of the Dike and Banjo Commissions for Eastern and Western Nigeria,

In

effect,

and so be able the

first

to enter a Technical Institute at fifteen plus.

three years in the Technical Institute

would then be

equivalent to a 'senior secondary school' (on completion of which, the Ordinary National Certficate level would be reached, so per-

mitting successful pupils to work as skilled following two years would enable the

Higher National

Certificate level

men in industry) while the

more competent men

to reach

and supply a cadre of technicians.

Such proposals offer a means of providing vocational training which is entirely in step with current suggestions for the diversification of secondary school curricula in Nigeria and seem likely to win general acceptance. It will be noted, also, that they are broadly in

harmony with the organization

of vocational training in

where pupils may pass from the middle school

Ghana

at sixteen plus to a

junior technical institute offering a three-year course (one-year pre-

apprenticeship and two years craft training) leading to the same general level of technical proficiency.

The

qualifications obtainable in

most vocational training courses

* National Certificates are a British qualification which is awarded in most two levels, Ordinary and Higher. Certificates in Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Production Engineering and Mining Surveying are given only at the Higher level. The course for the Ordinary National Certificate is based on a standard of three years (Si, S2 and S3) though students can gain exemption from Si by virtue of O level passes in the G.C.E. while two passes at level may exempt both Si and S2. One of the features of the National Certificate system is that an examination is set each year and that a candidate is normally required to pass in all subjects in one year before he is admitted to the next. There is consequently a good deal of repeating of courses. subjects at

A

FURTHER EDUCATION

IO3

are (at the technician level) the Ordinary National Certificate and

Higher National Certificate (both British qualifications) or, at the level, the Trade test and certificates of the City and Guilds Institute.* Many larger companies, however, offer to organize their own trade tests (for it is on these that the level of skill and hence rate of wages is determined) or rely on British certificates which are universally accepted. Yet at the technician level a substantial amount of some courses (between one-third and one-half, according to one observer) is not applicable to local conditions; 2 it certainly seems unnecessary for example, that building technicians in Nigeria should spend any considerable amount of time studying the building and structure of open fire-places which are rarely seen in practice. Here, as in most other countries in Africa, there is an evident need to secure a much greater degree of identity between what the technician studies and what he will need to practise. In Nigeria indeed, efforts craftsman

are

already

reducing

its

being

made

to

nigerianize

level so that confidence will

the

certification

without

be established in the

new

standards while relieving them from dependence on outside sources.

At the craftsman flexibility

level

too,

it

has been suggested that

more

should be shown in schemes of training. Thus in some

be an unnecessarily long and minimum level of employment. Many boys for example who have studied painting and decorating for three years find employment in car-spraying and a short course in this particular skill would probably be more effective and certainly less costly than the normal three-year trade course. The provision of optional shorter courses might also make possible the development of a greater variety of courses than most trade centres can now offer. A majoritv of the trade centres listed above offer courses in motor mechanics and cabinet-making for example but none in air-conditioning, radio repairs or the care and maintenance of imported machinery. trades, a three-year course appears to

expensive training to prepare boys for a

Though

these proposals refer specifically to Eastern Nigeria, they

serve to underline the need which has been

felt in

other countries

City and Guilds of London Institute examines in over 200 subjects. Syllabuses differ greatly in length of course, grades of examination, the inclusion or otherwise of practical work and so on. But in general they are intended to help an industry to develop schemes of further education as an integral part of apprenticeship training. Most syllabuses provide for an examination after two or three years of part-time study (usually called the Intermediate) and a Final examination which may be taken after a further two years of study. An Overseas Certificate is now awarded at both ordinary and higher levels which provides suitable objectives for a variety of technician grades. *

The

AFRICAN EDUCATION

104 too, for a

more

flexible

approach to vocational training than

is

possible

within the normal scheme of training for apprenticeship and technician qualifications. In particular, they suggest the need (a) for

shortening the period of training

now needed

to obtain a technician's

qualification (b) to assimilate the first years of training as a technician

to courses in the secondary school, (c) to provide a

tion of the

same standard

as existing certificates

form of

certifica-

but more consonant

with local conditions, (d) to offer courses at the craft level in a greater variety of subjects and which can be adapted in length and content to the local opportunities of employment.

TRAINING FOR AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY Comprehensive

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY AND

as these courses in technical

and commercial subjects

may

appear to be, there are various other forms of vocational training of special importance in all Commonwealth countries that are not included here.

The most important of these are training in agriculture,

animal husbandry and forestry and this

Government Departments

is

regularly given

by the

or Ministries responsible for these services

organized and administered by them. In Uganda, training schools are organized by the Agricultural Department, the Medical Department, the Department of Survey, Lands and Mines and the Forestry Department. In Malawi at centres

by the respective Departments for Colby (a two-year course), for technical officers in forestry in Chingoni and for veterinary staff at Colby, Mbawa and Mikolongwe. In Basutoland, the Agricultural Department administers the Maseru Agricultural School (which offers a two-year Diploma course), the Medical Department provides training for nurses, Posts and Telegraphs train postal assistants and the P.W.D. provides in-service training for draughtsmen [Annual Report, i960). 11 The basic course in these centres commonly lasts two years, (with opportunities for a small number to qualify for higher posts by continuing for a third year) and this may lead to appointment in the

similarly, courses are organized

agriculturists at

;

'technical assistant' class as agricultural assistants, superintendents,

veterinary assistants or assistant foresters.

In general, the average level of recruitment is post-Standard VIII and often post- Standard VI, though a determined effort is being made in some countries like Western Nigeria and Uganda, to recruit students for these courses at the School Certificate level. for example, the

minimum

From

qualification for entry to both

1961

Farm

FURTHER EDUCATION Institutes in

Uganda

will

105

be the School Certificate and nearly

all

admissions to the Forestry School in i960 held this qualification. In

Zambia, likewise, the Agricultural Training Centre

at

Monze which

has hitherto taken sixty students for a two-year certificate course with

Standard VI admission qualification for entry (eight years primary now aims to raise the standard of admission to Form II (that is, completion of two years in a secondary school). It must be some years, however, before the supply of secondary pupils will enable the School Certificate or even two years' of secondary schooling to be made a condition ofentry for all courses of this kind. The main purpose of the centres which provide these courses is to train the staff employed by the Ministries they represent, rather than farmers and other non-specialists, and the short courses provided for a

schooling),

the non-specialist are supplementary to this. In Malawi, a special

one-year course of training in rural science for tutors

is

from Teacher Training Colleges,

now

organized at Colby

as well as three- week

refresher courses for serving instructors (see the Committee of Inquiry into African Education, para 139) 12

and the demand for such courses more than a small portion of the work done by these Departments) may grow very rapidly indeed. The Ashby Commission on education in Nigeria says, 'We believe that these schools should (at

the outset no

conduct not only full-time courses for students in training but should be centres for refresher courses for young farmers and places for the training of rural science teachers for primary schools.' This suggestion has now been implemented in both the West and Eastern Regions of Nigeria. In the West, five Farm Institutes have been developed at Asaba, Ilesha, Odeda, Agbabu and Ikorodu, and the intention is to train young prospective farmers who will then be placed on a Farm Settlement w here they will assist in the establishment under supervision of farms carefully designed to suit the local conditions of soil and climate. They will be encouraged in the use of modern methods of farming by a scheme of supervised credit until their crops come into production and it is intended that each farm will provide adequate employment for the farmer and his family and sufficient income to enable him to repay the loans used in establishing the farm and provide a satisfactory standard of living. Each Institute admits a hundred trainees yearly for a two-year course, occupies between six hundred and one thousand acres of land and has its own farms modelled on those designed for the Settlements.* T

*

Land

Settlement

Scheme

— Farm

Institutes

Natural Resources, Western Nigeria, i960).

(Ministry

of

Agriculture

and

AFRICAN EDUCATION

106

In the Eastern Region, agricultural schools are lished (1964) for boys

who have

left

now being

estab-

the primary school which offer

a theoretical course for two years, after which it is assumed they will be strong enough to follow a more practical course (lasting three further years) when they will begin cultivating their own farms. Some departments of agriculture have also developed extension services which give help and advice to the farmer in his own community. These usually work in collaboration with programmes of mass education or community development where they are active; in Ghana, for example, it has been agreed that the agricultural extension service should concentrate upon the dissemination to farmers of technical knowledge in agriculture while the multipurpose workers of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development should be responsible for initiating village groups in the purpose of new extension schemes. Indeed, some aspects of extension work such as the training of adult women in home economics are now the explicit responsibility of the community development campaign. 13 In countries where mass education programmes are in abeyance or have not yet been comprehensively developed the Ministry of Agriculture usually provides its own

scheme of

training.

practising farmer

and

At Mungwi

(Zambia),

for

example,

his wife can take a five-month course

provides instruction in the most useful rural and domestic

the

which

skills. 9

be apparent then that most of the facilities at present husbandry and forestry are directed to the training of officers and employees in the services of the Ministries responsible for these services and that training in agricultural practice and techniques is not generally available to young farmers except in countries like Ghana (where it has been linked with a well-developed plan for community development) and Western Nigeria (where a programme of land settlement has been developed based on the special courses provided in Farm Institutes). It will

available for training in agriculture, animal

FURTHER EDUCATION FOR

ITS

OWN

SAKE

For most pupils when they leave school, opportunities of continuing any way at all except through courses of a technical, commercial or vocational kind, are very limited indeed. Of these classes which are provided by Ministries or Departments of Education, the majority aim at giving students little more than the education which they failed to get in the primary or secondary school. In Rhodesia, for example, some hundred and forty-eight community their education in

FURTHER EDUCATION

IO7

schools have been organized which are either attached to existing

primary schools or held in mission centres. These 'cater for adults who through age or other reasons, are unable to attend the normal school'. 14 In Basutoland, 'aided night schools have continued in Maseru, Mafebeng and Mohaloes Hoek. The main Missions have also run evening classes at many centres with varying degrees of success. Some were started as an attempt to go some way towards solving the problem of educating shepherds. It has met with some success. In an attempt to get to closer grips with this problem, many lower primary schools have accepted brothers on alternate days so that one of them is always available for the herding which is so essential while the traditional land tenure system persists. Whilst adversely affecting attendance figures, this will enable the bright boy to complete his primary course albeit

more slowly than

his

more

fortunate sister, before reaching adolescence or even adulthood.' 11

In Malawi, classes organized for adults prepare them to take the

VI or Standard VIII. should be remembered, however, that it is from classes such as these that some evening institutes have been able to develop proexaminations of Standard It

grammes

of a most promising kind. In Uganda, for example, an

organizer of Evening Classes has been appointed

who

has been

responsible for the establishment of an Evening Institute offering a variety of classes in technical, commercial, recreational subjects.

Kampala

Evening

classes are

now

and remedial

held in four other centres besides

(at Jinja, Mbaba, Entebbe and Gulu) and local evening committees have been set up to look after their work. The Evening Institute is thus fulfilling a double role: it relieves the Technical Institute of responsibility for the junior work in commercial subjects while organizing in its own sphere a wide range of classes with a practical or recreational purpose. These have included instruction in motor vehicle maintenance for owner-drivers, landscape painting, music, dressmaking and amateur woodwork, and all classes are multiracial and open to men and women. The enrolments for i960 are shown in Table I. The unique contribution which Departments of Extra-Mural Studies in African Universities have been able to make, accords fully with this broader concept of further education. The classes which tutors from the Universities of Accra, Ibadan, Makerere, and Dar es Salaam have been able to organize are few and small in number but of the highest academic standards. Their purpose is to offer education in a number of subjects (of which the most popular are international

classes

AFRICAN EDUCATION

io8 history

affairs,

studies.

and

social sciences) at or near the level of university

These courses vary

in

length

may

meetings, others (sessional courses)

—some

through ten

last

consist of as

many

as thirty

meetings in the year and some evening courses last more than one year. In Nigeria the Department of Extra-Mural Studies at Ibadan for example, has organized weekly classes with at least twenty meetings

and

also vocational

and refresher courses, usually

for occupational

groups such as teachers, civil servants and trade unionists. In Uganda, regular classes now run for periods of from five weeks up to two years

TABLE

I

Evening Classes of the Evening Institute of Kampala (i960)

Number

Number

of

Kampala Jinja

Mbale Entebbe

Gulu TOTAL

of

students

classes

H

525 78

5

8

IOI

16

177

2

21

45 —

902

and there have been numerous week-end and one-day

schools.

Thus

connexion with the General Elections of March 1961, the ExtraMural Department in Makerere ran a residential course at Jinja for one week in November i960, and with assistance from the Govern-

in

ment was able to invite two professional political organizers to visit Uganda for the course and then conduct week-end schools in the provinces for local candidates and party workers. 10

Opportunities for further education for limited in so

when

its

most Commonwealth countries

the

demands

own

sake are extremely

in Africa

and necessarily

for education are so great at every other level.

Yet there is an evident demand for education when it is offered in a form suited to adult needs and interests, and there can be no doubt that when resources permit, this is a form of educational endeavour which will be greatly expanded,!

FURTHER EDUCATION

IO9

LITERACY CAMPAIGNS Literacy campaigns need no justification. For illiteracy is still the greatest

problem

many

people, mass

in the field of adult education

in most Commonwealth countries in Africa and the issue is not whether illiterate adults should be taught to read and write but how given the huge demands this may be done with greatest effect and which education is now placing on all national budgets in Africa whether this should be given an overriding priority. The following table shows the proportion of people in a selected number of countries in Africa who were believed to be unable to read

—

or write in 1950:

TABLE

11

Extent of Illiteracy among Adults in Selected Countries around 1950

(Quoted from World

Ghana Kenya Malawi Nigeria S.

Leone

Illiteracy at mid-century.)

75-8o% 75-8o% 9o-95% 85-90% 90-95%

Estimates of this kind

may be

Tanganyika

Uganda Swaziland

Gambia

90-95% 70-75% 80-85% 90-95%

(protectorate)

inflated or diminished according to

may mean no few sentences from a beginner's the ability to read local newspapers and

the standards by which 'literacy' has been assessed.* It

more than the

ability to read a

primer or as much as understand them and, in particular regions, levels of illiteracy may vary substantially above or below these approximations. As an example, in Western and Eastern Nigeria, it has been estimated that the number of illiterates varies between 70-80 per cent, of the population whereas the proportion in the Northern Region is believed to be over 90 per cent. In Uganda, where figures for the 1959 census** are now available, though the percentage of males receiving schooling in the country as a whole (age group six to fifteen only) was 48 per cent., percentages for the individual provinces varied from 58-6 (Buganda) to 39-2 (Western) and minimal standards of education also varied sharply * See Reading Ability (H.M.S.O., 195 1) for a useful set of standards for determining degrees of literacy. ** Ministry' of Economic Development, Uganda: Uganda Census 1959 (African Population), Entebbe (1961).

no

AFRICAN EDUCATION

between the sexes and for different age-groups. The proportion of who may presumably be considered 'literate' varies then from province to province, from one age group to another and from men to women, as may be seen in the following table which is extracted from the Uganda Census for 1959: people receiving schooling and

TABLE

III

Percentage of Population receiving Schooling by Province, Sex and Age-

group (Uganda, 1959) Total (over age

Sex

Uganda

M F

Buganda Eastern

Province

Northern Province

Western Province

M F M F M F M

6-15

16-45

Over 45

of 6)

48 27-8

427

17-1

39-9

16.5

3 '4

i7'3

58-6

53'2

28-8

49 '5

49-1

36'3

4-0

49-1

38-8

10-3

27-4 45-0 16-9

I2'0

i'5

34*3 36-4 14-0

393

8-4

6-2

0-5

37'9 8-8

32-5 7-8

97

3i-5

i-i

9

39-2

F

19-5

'9

Variations are normally found also between urban and rural areas literate adults to migrate from the outand for these reasons all that can be concluded with certainty from such national estimates is perhaps the magnitude of the problem which has to be faced.

because of the tendency for lying areas

Experience in

many

parts of the world has

shown

that adults can

acquire a nominal degree of fluency in reading in a matter of several

weeks

if

them

to read a primer.

they attend classes regularly and certainly sufficient to enable This evidence, coupled with the success

claimed for methods based on the principle of 'each-one-teach-one', suggested that large numbers of adults could be taught to read very quickly provided the effort was sustained and facilities for learning

were available over the whole of a selected area. It was on this reasoning that most of the literacy campaigns were launched in the post-war years and many of them were strikingly successful in the early stages. Yet when organizers visited the

FURTHER EDUCATION villages

where teaching had been successful a year

III later,

they were

how many 'literate' villagers had relapsed many of the adults who had responded to the

often disconcerted to find

they also found that appeal to become

literate,

had done so

for

some

practical reason,

them in getting would enable them to follow Church Services more easily. From such experiences, it became apparent that the organization of a programme of literacy classes meeting regularly for perhaps two or three weeks was insufficient to ensure the development of literate habits, unless it were associated with skills of a useful and social kind and also supported by a supply of 'follow-up' literature after the initial classes had finished. The most ambitious of the literacy campaigns on this model and the first to be conducted on a national scale, was the campaign for mass education launched in Ghana in 1951. The Minister of Education and Social Welfare then said '[This] is a large scale, balanced plan to help every part of our country to achieve Literacy and to go far beyond that and transform its whole life.' 16 According to the plan, 'prominent in a mass education campaign must be an attack on illiteracy but mass education for community development is something more than this. It is an attack on ignorance, apathy and prejudice, on poverty, disease and isolation on all the difficulties which hinder the progress of a community. It is an education which is designed to teach people not merely how to read but how to live' {Plan for Mass Literacy and Mass Education, p. 6). 17 During the first year, emphasis fell naturally and reasonably enough on literacy rather than on the other aspects of community development which were also part of the plan. In 1952 nearly seventytwo thousand people were enrolled in some three thousand four hundred and ninety classes and over nine thousand three hundred

perhaps because learning to read was

employment

likely to help

or

—

voluntary leaders were trained to take charge of them. In comparison

with this achievement, schemes for village improvement seemed to lag behind, perhaps because projects like laying a water-supply or building a village hall

community than

make considerably

establishing a literacy class

greater ;

demands on the

only three hundred and

hundred and twenty-one village projects were completed during that year. By i960, however, the campaign appeared to have crystallized its objectives into four types of programme (i) adult literacy, (ii) work among women, (iii) self-help construction work like building a postoffice or a school, and (iv) the initiation of extension programmes for

eighty-six of the seven

which were started

in 1952,

AFRICAN EDUCATION

112 other

departments,

especially

agriculture;

the

number

of

new

and a half thousand) was not greatly less than the number which were awarded certificates in 1952 (about eighteen thousand) and during the intervening years ten technical field units had been organized and a substantial number of community projects completed or launched. 18 The following table shows only those projects which were completed or in progress in 1959-60: literates (over fifteen

;

TABLE

IV

Projects completed or in progress,

Type of Project

Completed

Roads

Communal

ig^g-60

buildings

Site clearing for football parks

In progress

62

152

127

254

87

28

Latrines

472

407

Water supplies

393

9i

Other projects

360

205

1,501

1,137

Commonwealth As examples, two

Similar campaigns have been organized in other countries in Africa though on a less ambitious scale.

campaigns are conducted in Western Nigeria each year, each about four months, during which adult pupils who attend classes regularly (three times weekly for an hour each evening) learn the elements of reading and writing in their own language. In 1957, about forty-three thousand adults were enrolled (of whom eleven thousand were women) and about seventeen thousand literacy certificates were awarded to those who completed the course and cared to do the test. Post-literacy classes were also held in such literacy

lasting

subjects as English

and arithmetic and follow-up

literature in the

vernacular was available on topics of general interest to adult learners. Booklets were prepared for example on Food,

Maternity Care, Swollen Shoot Disease and Why You Pay Tax. Indeed an important feature of the scheme has been the production of textbooks and follow-up reading in Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo and other vernacular languages. In Northern Nigeria, women's classes were recognized in 1957 and

and

now

train selected

women

in literacy, housecraft

and home

hygiene with the intention that they should in turn hold classes in their own villages. In Eastern Nigeria, where enthusiasm village

FURTHER EDUCATION

113

generated by the literacy campaigns of the middle forties led to a

whole

Udi

series of

community development projects (particularly in the responsibility for community development was

division), 19

transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (1959) and the small funds available were used to encourage bridge building and the

opening of new roads.* It is evident, however, that in most African countries, public opinion on the relative importance of literacy teaching has changed considerably over the past fifteen years. The issues have been clearly stated in the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into African Education

Under

the present circumstances of Nyasaland, the controlling factors are

the shortage of funds for essentials and the needs to assess priorities in

expenditure.

Mass education and

literacy can

be of real benefit only

if

community development programme achieve a definite objective. In some other

these are done thoroughly as part of a

and with the determination

to

African territories, this has been costly in

men and money.

In the absence

of unallocated funds, these subjects entail a diversion of resources from

some other

project, usually formal education in the schools.

formal school system

So long

as the

depriving

it of funds for the financing of schemes which can go only a limited way towards providing a substitute for its inadequacies. We believe from the evidence

we have

is

inadequate,

it is

difficult to justify

received in this connexion, that parents would prefer the funds

available to be spent

on

their children's education rather than

attempt to improve their own. (paras. 571

and

572).

We

on any

consider this a reasonable attitude,

12

There can be few countries in Africa today where this view will not win general support particularly as the possibility of achieving a programme of universal primary education now seems within sight. In countries where full primary education has been achieved, a different view may be taken. In Western Nigeria for example, the only effective way of helping people to become actively engaged on a selfhelp basis appears to be through a programme of community development. Such developments seem to merit support because in addition to their physical and material achievements, they encourage people to think together, discuss their common problems and so strengthen democratic practices. At a time when the number of * It is significant however that the Eastern Nigeria Development Plan (1962-8) provides for the expansion of the existing Community Development Centre to enroll double-stream courses to be organized at Awgu and for the training of some two hundred and ninety village workers.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

114

primary school leavers is growing rapidly, they may also help in reducing the present amount of under-employment in rural areas. The Regional Government has accordingly allocated funds for the inauguration of an integrated rural development scheme during the period 1962-8 the Region will be divided into some thirteen hundred and forty Development Blocks (consisting mostly of ten villages), each of which will be under the control of a community development w orker and the main elements in the scheme will be ;

r

(a)

an aided but self-help housing programme;

scheme

(b)

a sanitation

(c)

for the improvement of agriculture encouragement of rural industries the planned development and reconstruction of villages. a

programme

(d) the (e)

The scheme will cost about Plan and the annual cost will

.£3

million during the period of the

rise to a

maximum

of £650,000 in

1964-5. In the towns where the under-employed people are mainly petty

businessmen and self-employed artisans, the Governto make technical advice and financial assistance available under a different scheme. It is, however, one of the principal objectives of the Development Plan 'to continue to use and to strengthen the community development spirit as a medium of fostering economic progress' (Western Nigeria Development Plan, traders, small

ment intends

1962-8, p.

5).

THE NEED FOR A COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAMME Further education then covers a far wider field than the customary 'technical and vocational courses other than teacher training courses'

and probably sets a more complex problem of organization than education at any other stage, both in the range of subjects in which instruction is needed and the levels at which it has to be given. In the technical and vocational subjects, the pattern of development seems reasonably clear, for trade centres, technical institutes and universities provide courses at standards which have been accepted as the basis of educational provision for adults in

all

Commonwealth

countries in Africa, and the teaching of commercial subjects has also

been assimilated to this pattern by the provision of courses in and universities. Even so, it has become evident

technical institutes in a

number more

ceived

of countries that vocational training needs to be conflexibly

and

in

ways which respond more

closely to

FURTHER EDUCATION national needs

trade course are

II5

and various alternatives to the standard three-year now under consideration. In some countries too, the

rapid expansion of secondary education has

now made

it

possible to

envisage teaching in technical subjects as an integral part of education in school.

The

pattern of training in other subjects which

may be

quite as

important to the national interest, is less determinate. Courses in agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry are provided for the farmer, the teacher and the technical assistant by specialist depart-

ments of Government, but these are subsidiary to the main purpose of these departments and in most countries it must be doubted whether they can hope to meet the greatly increased demands to be expected in the future. Indeed, there seems to be an obvious case for an estimate of future

needs such as was provided for Nigeria by the Ashby Commission and eventually for a comprehensive and overall plan which would enable instruction in

all

these subjects to be

made more

generally

available.

Nor can education training for a vocation.

more

liberal

for adults

Many

be conceived solely in terms of

adults are anxious to be given help in

and human ways than earning

a living

and

it

seems impor-

tant that the right to such guidance should be explicitly recognized.

The young adult's need for help in finding his place in the new kind now emerging in urban communities in Africa has already been mentioned; but many older and more settled adults benefit too and in far more than an academic way from courses which they attend ostensibly for their own improvement. One example of of society

—

—

education which makes this wider social appeal

is

the very successful

Badge Scheme in Zambia, which encourages women to work for badges awarded for the successful completion of a large number of homecraft courses.

In a majority of countries today therefore, further education has already outstripped such schemes of training for trade or vocation as

seemed sufficient a generation ago and, in most, the time seems overdue for a statement of aims and the elaboration of a programme planned to achieve them. This alone, one would think, could give character and purpose to the many disparate activities now offered in the

name

of further education.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

Il6

REFERENCES i.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

Ministry of Education, Uganda Protectorate. Annual Report of the Ministry of Education (1961), (Government Printer, Entebbe). Ministry of Education, Eastern Nigeria. Vocational Education Nigeria (Official document, no. 13, of 1962).

in

Eastern

Unesco. Report of Unesco Planning Mission for Tanganyika (1962), p. 12. Federal Ministry of Nigeria. Investment in Education (i960). Ministry of Education, London; 15 to 18, Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education Vol. I (1959) (H.M.S.O. reprinted i960). Ministry of Education, Ghana. Education Report for years 1958-60 (Accra, 1962).

7. 8.

9.

10. 11.

Southern Rhodesia. African education: Annual Report for the year 1062. Government Printer, Tanganyika. Report on high-level Manpower Requirements and Resources in Tanganyika, 1962-j. Ministry of Education, Northern Rhodesia. A survey of technical and commercial Education in Northern Rhodesia (Kitwe, i960) (the Keir Committee). Uganda Protectorate. Annual Report of Education Department (i960). Basutoland Protectorate. Annual Report of the Education Department (i960).

12.

Ministry of Education, Nyasaland. Committee of Inquiry into African Education (Government Printer, Zomba, 1962).

13.

Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, Ghana. Annual Report for the year i960 (published 1962). Department of Education, Southern Rhodesia. Report on Native Education (1959) (Government Printer, Salisbury). Unesco. World Illiteracy at mid-century (1951). Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, Ghana. Annual Report of the Department of Social Welfare and Community

14.

15. 16.

Development (1953).

17.

18.

19.

Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, Ghana. Literacy campaign 1952 (West African Graphic Co. Ltd., Accra). Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, Ghana. Plan for Mass Literacy and Mass Education (1951) (printed by Scottish Mission Book Dept., Accra). Ministry of Information, Ghana. Annual Report of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, i960 (Government Printing Department, Accra). Chadwick, E. R. 'Communal Development Education,

XIX,

no. 2 (January 1948).

in

Udi

Division', Oversea

Education in the University THE NEW UNIVERSITIES OF AFRICA

Perhaps the most spectacular educational achievement in Commonwealth countries since the war has been the development of institutions of university rank.

In 1950, there were only four institutions of this kind in

Commonwealth

and Makerere. Twelve years to the one

which was thought

universities

now

Ghana

-

number had been more than

later, this

new

trebled and in Nigeria alone, four

Basutoland Bechuanaland and Swaziland

the

all

countries of Africa, at Accra, Fourah Bay, Ibadan

universities

sufficient in 1946.

existing or planned

is

had been added

The

full list

University

1963

University of Ghana, Accra

Kwame Nkrumah

of

as follows

1948

University of Science and

Technology

1961

University College of Cape Coast

1962

Malawi

University

Nigeria

University of Ibadan

1964 1948 i960

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

University of Ife

Ahmadu

1962 1961 1962

Bello University

University of Lagos

Rhodesia Sierra

Leone

University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland University College (formerly Fourah Bay

i960

College, est. 1827)

Uganda Kenya

Makerere University College Royal College, Nairobi

Tanganyika

University College,

Dar

1955

es

1

> J

The

Federal

University of

1949 1961

East Africa

1961

Salaam

Zambia:

University

1965

AFRICAN EDUCATION

Il8

This astonishing rate of development is the more remarkable since was widely believed in most countries before independence that the number of young people able to profit from a university was too few to justify the establishment of such institutions on a national basis. It seemed too that it would be difficult to recruit an adequately trained staff and that the capital and recurrent costs of such projects would be beyond the resources of all but the most prosperous Commonwealth it

countries in Africa.

For such reasons, it was decided in 1946 that one university college would be enough for the time being for the whole of West Africa and that this should be sited at Ibadan. In 1947 however an exception was made in favour of Ghana, because of the 'strong public demand and of the evident willingness and capacity of the people of the Gold .

.

.

Coast to provide the necessary financial support*. There, the Governor's Committee had said 'there sense of urgency and a

demand

and that the extension of education ability of the

country to finance

people to assimilate

it.

.

.

.

is

an impelling

that political progress shall be swift

it

.

shall be limited only by the and the capacity of the young .

.

In particular, the people consider

learning for the training of their future leaders.

much

They

realize

the possession of a university college integrated with

life will

mean

to a

young country determined

to build

its

its

own

it

and

essential to provide themselves with a centre of high education

how

way

of

future

on secure political foundations.' 1 These arguments have seemed no less valid in other Commonwealth countries than they were in Ghana and with the exception of Gambia there is now no Commonwealth country in Africa without its

own

university or proposals to build one.*

AUTONOMY OR STATE - CONTROL? An

important principle of the university tradition as it has developed overseas and one which universities in Africa most certainly wish to preserve

is

the principle of academic freedom. In

effect, this

means

that the university recognizes no frontiers other than the frontiers of

knowledge whether in Africa or not and that the standards which it sets in its science and scholarship are those which receive international recognition.

A

*

An

may

find

it

modern

state

where most

university

earn this status and retain

it

in a

difficult,

however, to if

not

all

the

up a University College in Mauritius by Dr. J. P. Lockwood (Sessional Paper No. 5, 1962) reports, however, that the author was not persuaded that the time had come to establish a University College on the island and that serious difficulties would arise in financing it.

Examination of the

Possibility of setting

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY cost of university education

unless

it is

is

a direct charge

given the freedom to run

its

own

119

on the government

affairs as are universities

elsewhere.

One way university

of ensuring that, as the

is

Ashby Commission puts

it,

insulated from the hot and cold winds of polities'

vest the responsibility for

its

management

University of Lagos,

it

possible to ensure

'the is

to

an autonomous council The Council of the University of Ibadan, for example, included representatives of the public, who attend (or are expected to attend) as individuals and not as agents for any sectional interest or political party. It had complete control over the affairs of the university, approving the appointment of staff, the content of courses and the admission and examination of students. Its members included a Chairman, the Principal and Vice-Principal (ex-officio), a member nominated by the Visitor, three nominated by the Governor- General in Council, two nominees from each of the three Regions, four members representing the academic staff, one non-professorial member of staff, two members (overseas) nominated by the Inter-University Council and three co-opted members. The Council would not have been able to exercise effective control over the University's affairs, however, unless it had a secure income and this was provided as a block grant for recurrent expenditure which was expendable entirely at its discretion. Nor, as was noted by the Commission on the establishment of the is

university and academic freedom for

its

in

autonomy members merely by

for the

writing

clauses into the constitution of the university the principle of univer;

sity autonomy and academic freedom must be accepted by governments and citizens of the country as a necessary condition for the

attainment of the

full benefits of

higher education (Report of the

Advisory Commission, p. 25). 2 The major corollaries of such a system of government are of course that it helps to ensure control by the university over such matters as entrance requirements, the

number

of students to be

recommended

award of degrees, diplomas and certificates and the selection and promotion of its own staff. In practice, however, Council is more for the

concerned with matters affecting the relations of the university with outside bodies and general policy than with routine administration,

most of which is dealt with by Senate (representing the heads of departments) and the boards of faculties.* # See also 'Functions of Universities' (West African Intellectual Community t chapter IV) for a stimulating discussion of ways in which it may be desirable to make changes in the constitutions of African universities. 3

AFRICAN EDUCATION

120

THE ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN AFRICA The academic purpose of the university in Africa is

essentially that of

world over, to teach and advance knowledge by disinterested research and to maintain standards of teaching at a level which can be clearly related to those established in other countries. The University of Nigeria Law (1955) states for example that the academic objects of the University of Nigeria are (i) to hold forth to all classes and communities without any distinction whatever an encouragement for pursuing a regular and liberal course of education, (ii) to promote research and the advancement of science and learning, and (iii) to organize, improve and extend education of a University standard: and it may be significant that this statement of objectives is identical in terms with that of the University of Ibadan. In the earlier university colleges in Commonwealth countries in Africa (except Fourah Bay which was already associated with the University of Durham), the level reached in degree examinations has been explicitly related to international standards through the special relationship which they have established with the University of London. This arrangement which is based on collaboration between the university colleges in Africa and the University of London in syllabuses and examination papers, ensures that examinations and universities the

standards set at the degree level are those set in the University of

London and lead to the award of London degrees. Universities which have been established more recently, such as the Federal University of East Africa and Ahmadu Bello University, propose to ensure recognition of their degrees by appointing external examiners from other universities. It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that African universities have social purposes too deriving from the influences to which they owe their own existence. These may be reflected overtly in the university's attitude towards education as a public service and its

readiness to undertake extra-mural responsibilities, in subjects

of study or those special aspects of

them which seem

peculiarly

which courses on African studies which are

relevant to an African context or even in the levels at

may be

offered

(e.g.

the lectures

undergraduate students in some universities). A majority of universities in Africa for example, are essentially popular institutions, created and maintained by national governments and planned to serve the needs of the nation rather than those of particular attended by

all

groups in society. One observer has noted, indeed, that 'unlike

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY

121

West African university is an instruchange the existing order, not to preserve it. It has become the spearhead of nationalism; in Nigeria, unfortunately, even of universities in Great Britain, the

ment

to

tribal regionalism.' 4

Certainly, the problems of universities in Africa appear to be

all

in

the present and the future for they have none in the past except those

which they have chosen to inherit from universities in other countries and in countries where they have been closely associated with the 'nation-building' mission of the government, they are regarded with

considerable affection as well as esteem.

Moreover, universities in Africa often seem to feel their responsimore urgently than universities in other continents, perhaps because they are in a position to contribute more directly to the country's economy, can exercise a greater influence in African countries at their present stage of development and thus seem to have a bilities

more

vital part to play.

For such reasons, the role of universities in Africa may appear to be significantly different from that of many universities in Europe and it is probably against this image that their development should be judged rather than against that of universities whose history- and

What appears be an excessive sense of nationalism cannot be wholly regrettable, for example, if it leads teachers to identify and teach the essential elements of the national culture (and there are many* who feel that a relations with the society they serve are very different. to

revision of courses of study in terms of African cultures

is

urgently

nor does a willingness to make innovations, whether in the ) planning of courses, the subjects of study or standards of admission, necessarily imply any compromise with scholarly tradition. The necessary

7

;

which are in many ways from those of the universities of Europe and Xorth America on which they have been modelled and their interpretation of each and all of these issues must be expected to be characteristically universities in Africa have responsibilities different

different.

PROGRAMMES OF SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE The development of African Studies A major responsibility of every university in Africa is to lead Africans to a greater understanding and appreciation of their own societies and cultures. It is possible, one observer has noted, for an African to (a)

7

* cf. The West African qy A. Busia. 3

Intellectual

Community,

p. 86. Functions of Universites,

AFRICAN EDUCATION

122

graduate with a B.A. knowing practically nothing about the intricate

and social structure of his own race; the fascinating and complex network of organization among the Kede tribe along the Niger, w hich included even a sliding scale of income tax according to the number of canoes a man owned; the reverence for the earth among the Tallensi and the ingenious checks and balances which protected them from autocracy and contributed to good government the economics of Yoruba trading the laws of ownership and inheritance of land among the Ibo the dignified and sophisticated pattern of judicial procedure among the Bemba; the elaborate and subtle system of education among the Mende. Nor is this 'just interesting antiquarian knowledge; it is essential equipment for the African intellectual who will become a civil servant or a teacher and who has the challenging responsibility of leading the common people from the political

T

;

;

old Africa into the new.' 4

Often, indeed, the effect of education has been to alienate Africans

from

own

their

traditions.

'The

effect of education, says a recent

report on higher education in Africa, too often has been to remove

students from that sense of one-ness with their societies without which they cannot effectively serve these societies and help them in the problem of their transition to the modern world. Nor without such application and confidence will they be equipped to offer their own

wider intellectual world.' 5 One way of countering this ignorance of African customs, it has been suggested, might be to offer an introductory course in African studies to all students until regular courses in secondary schools have distinctive heritage to the

adapted to African needs and conditions; all stuGhana for example, attend lectures on African studies and institutions during their first year, as do all students in the University of Lagos. In Nigeria, the need for innova-

been

sufficiently

dents in the University of

tions in this field has been aptly

Ashby So long bodies

as curricula are influenced

it is

deserve.

The

and vigorously expressed

in the

report, Investment in Education.

by overseas syllabuses and examining

inevitable that African studies will have less attention than they

But with independent

future of Nigeria

is

universities, this

bound up with

must no longer happen. and Nigeria's

the future of Africa

;

should be a first duty of Nigerian universities, therefore, to foster the study of African

past

African history and folk-lore and language.

lies in

history

and

It

antiquities, its language, its societies, its rocks

vegetation and animal

life.

We know

and

soils

and

that this will not be easy; before

African studies can be taught they must be codified.

The

textbooks will

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY have to be written. But a

start

123

must be made and we recommend

that every

university should have a department or institute of African studies doing

mainly research but building up a body of knowledge which will be We suggest that such an institute should as far as possible be inter-disciplinary and it should coordinate research being done by various departments in this vital field. Such a centre or institute, apart from promoting and co-ordinating research in this field within the departments, will also initiate investigations into such subjects as history, archaeology, African music, dance, art, the languages of Nigeria in particular and of West Africa in general, with a view to producing material for teaching in these subjects not only in the Universities but also in the secondary schools and training colleges. 6 at first

material for undergraduate courses in the future.

A

number

ments with

of universities in Africa have

now developed

a special responsibility for African studies,

depart-

such as the

Centre of African Studies in the University of Ghana or, in some have been associated from their inception with existing institu-

cases,

tions (such as the Nigerian Institute of Social at

and Economic Research

Ibadan, the East African Institute of Social Research at Makerere

and the Rhodes-Livingstone

Institute for Social Research in the

University College of Salisbury) so that such studies have been en-

couraged and steadily expanded within the general framework of is to be expected that most others will do so as soon as their teaching resources permit them to do so the Institute of African Studies in the University of Lagos for example cannot be developed until other faculties have been developed on which it will depend and has accordingly been deferred to the third phase of the Development Plan for implementation after 1964. university studies. It

;

(b) Professional training

Fifteen years or so ago, the social purpose of the university, as the Asquith Commission saw it, was to produce the elite which would ensure the viability of democratic institutions after independence 'graduates who have standards of public service and the capacity for leadership' which self-government demands. Today, independence has brought with it a massive development of the economy and social services and so confronts the universities with responsibilities different in kind and wider in scope than any envisaged by the Asquith Commission. Universities in Africa must now be prepared to offer a comprehensive range of professional training and, in addition, such new courses as local needs may suggest, whether or not these are currently accepted within the European pattern of university studies.

As an example:

AFRICAN EDUCATION

124

most accountants, bankers, company

secretaries, insurance

managers and

transport executives in Britain are trained 'on the job'. Their employers give

them a variety of experience in the office and they work for professional by private study or by part-time attendance at college. In

qualifications

America, professionals in these

We

way

think the best

fields are college-trained

and have degrees.

to train Nigerians for these professions

is

to offer

degrees in commerce and business administration, preferably to be taken (i.e. the student would alternate some with some months of study). Provision should be made also for students to study for these degrees by evening classes and by correspondence. In addition to these avenues of undergraduate training, we think there should be opportunities for young men of ability already in

as

sandwich courses,

months of work

employment

'office-based'

in the office

to

attend courses in higher

management

studies.

These

courses should be pitched at postgraduate level but the students

them may not

attend

grounds,

e.g.

they

who

be graduates and they may have diverse backbe engineers, commercial managers and executives

all

may

in the public corporations. 6

Some

of these needs are already recognized

of Africa

;

by the new

universities

the University of Nigeria for example, includes account-

ancy, banking, commerce, insurance, journalism and secretaryship

among

the subjects in which degrees or diplomas

may be taken Ahmadu

{University of Nigeria Progress Report, E.R. No. 7, i960); Bello University includes an Institute of Administration

which

is

developing courses in subjects such as public administration and plans

and central government administration the University of Lagos offers courses in commerce and business administration, both of which may be taken to provide in-service courses for officers of the local ;

in evening classes offers

;

while in East Africa, the Royal College at Nairobi

courses in business administration,

accountancy and domestic science fessional Studies),

developing an

(in the

law and government, Faculty of Special Pro-

and the University College of Dar

Institute

of Public

Administration.

es

Salaam

Indeed,

is

the

development of courses in such a catholic range of subjects and ways that seem to be especially appropriate to the needs of a

in

rapidly developing

administration)

is

economy

(as for

example, the training offered in

already a distinctive feature of the university in

Africa. (c)

Courses in medicine, veterinary science and agriculture

Most African

countries have a special interest in the courses which

universities offer in medicine, veterinary science

where the purpose of the

discipline

is

and agriculture and

so evidently practical,

it

is

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY

125

perhaps inevitable that criticism should be directed at once to any apparent failure to relate professional training to the needs of the community. Thus, in Nigeria, the Ashby Report points out that 'the needs of Nigeria for medical and veterinary services are totally different from the needs of Britain' and urges that 'Nigeria should be prepared to break away from a slavish adherence to the requirements for medical and veterinary practice in Britain and should (with suitable advice from overseas countries which have tackled similar problems and know how to improvise medical services) work out

what her needs are and what sort of training will meet these needs. When there is one doctor to 20,000 people (the present ratio is one to 40,000), it will be time enough to introduce the refinements into medical education which Britain (with one doctor to a thousand patients) can afford.' 6 The Commission accordingly recommended (i) that the output from University College Hospital, Ibadan, should be doubled by using more hospitals for teaching and by doubling the use made of the existing laboratory accommodation, (ii) that a locally recognized afresh precisely

examination should be insitututed for those who fail to qualify for a medical degree at Ibadan, and (iii) that the medical course should be reoriented to emphasize public health, preventive medicine and pediatrics.

As

for veterinary science, 'with

one veterinarian to 120,000 head of

cattle,

Nigeria cannot afford the niceties of a veterinary education so

much

directed to providing private practitioners

whose main pre-

with pet dogs and cats. Veterinary education in Nigeria needs to emphasize animal husbandry, animal nutrition and preventive medicine. While veterinary education is tied to the requirements of overseas professional organizations, it will never have the flexibility occupation

it

is

needs. Nigeria should therefore firmly decide on a veterinary

education relevant to Nigeria, not one which would allow Nigerians (in the unlikely

event that they wished to do so) to practise in

Britain.' 6

In the courses in agriculture, it seemed to the Commission that the primary objectives should be to give the student a sound grasp of the physical, biological

and

social sciences

which underlie

agriculture,

with a feeling for rural people, an appreciation of their problems and a desire to work with these problems in a variety of ways. Some of the jobs for which such graduates are needed are agricultural officers, senior extension workers, research workers, teachers,

farm workers, marketing

specialists

and, in

course

of

AFRICAN EDUCATION

126

time, farmers on their studies

own

account. So important

is

this

group of

—they range from agronomy, animal husbandry and agricul-

economics to horticulture, food technology and plant protection Commission thought it hardly possible to do justice to them in anything less than a school of agriculture. Moreover, as the farmer becomes more scientific in his approach to the land, his womenfolk become more scientific in their approach to their homes and children and this suggests the inclusion in the curriculum of another subject home economics. It is as a result of these recommendations that the School of Veterinary Science has now been tural

—that the

—

established in the University of

which

will serve the

Ahmadu

Bello, the clinical part of

whole of Nigeria.

A number of these suggestions are based on changes which may be demand for trained personnel and new standards of employment, neither of them matters on which universities can intervene directly. Others refer to changes in the content of particular courses and in the level at which students should be allowed to qualify; both of them matters on which universities are properly and expected in the

almost continuously exercised. Universities in Africa are in general well aware of the need to ensure that instruction

is

suited to local

needs and most of them from their inception have provided courses

which

are as relevant to such needs as

seem

practicable.

(d) Extension services

The

florescence of university institutions described at the beginning

of this chapter and indeed, the very circumstances which have led to political

independence virtually prescribe a further responsibility for lies outside its customary field

the university in Africa and one which of responsibility, the student

body

;

this is the responsibility for help-

ing to promote a cultural awakening

among

the people, a purpose

normal most universities in Africa will lay a considerable emphasis on extension work with adult groups, because they recognize a present responsibility for promoting a cultural awakening among the people as well as for furthering their education through classes and study groups. In all countries, more-

which can be served best by range of extension work.

It

a considerable expansion of the

may be assumed

that

over, this effort has to be directed towards the vast majority

who

live

and work on the land many of the methods and techniques by which this may be done have still to be developed yet this is in itself some measure of the new responsibilities which universities in Africa may ;

feel

bound

to assume. 5

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY (e)

The

127

training of teachers

A further programme of special significance for universities in Africa is

that

The

which ensures the supply of teachers

to the secondary schools.

shortage of teachers in these schools (for whose training the

universities are mainly responsible) has

reasons

why

enough

to

been one of the principal

secondary education has been unable to expand rapidly

meet the

target set

by Development Plans, just

as the

expansion of the universities themselves depends on the number of qualified students they can recruit from the secondary schools. Hitherto, it has been usual for students training to become teachers to spend four years in the university, three of which have been spent reading for a degree and the fourth in training as a teacher both as students and teachers, moreover, it has been usual for them to receive the kind of training which will fit them for teaching up to the sixth form level. In most countries in mid-Africa, it may seem hardly necessary for all graduates to receive such specialized training and indeed, in ;

Nigerian universities the Ashby Commission recommended the institution of a special degree course for teachers lasting three years

instead of four in which the student would study only those subjects which he would be expected to teach in school. The Commission expected that such courses would include four subjects in Year I and three in Years II and III with elements of pedagogy and periods

of teaching practice in addition. In practice a

number

of universities

and university colleges have now inaugurated degree courses in which a study of education and some practical preparation for teaching can be included as part of the requirements for a first degree, though the total requirements for graduation are in every case less demanding than those anticipated by the Ashby Commission. Courses leading to the B.A. (Education) have now been inaugurated at Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello* and Makerere; and a similar course is proposed for the University of Lagos (Unesco Commission, pp. 55-57). In Tanganyika likewise, students may offer education as one of the main subjects leading to the degree of B.A. or B.Sc. The universities are also concerned with the maintenance of high standards in the teaching profession, and this pre-supposes the provision of opportunities for teachers to keep abreast with develop-

ments

in educational thought

and practice; they

only institutions from which training colleges * Bulletin of Education

are,

may

moreover, the

reasonably expect

Department (July 1963) University of Ahmadu

Bello.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

128

guidance of a professional kind. To co-ordinate these various responsibilities towards the teaching profession, a number of universities in Africa have now established an Institute of Education to be responsible for promoting research in education, for professional courses of training within the university and for the organization of in-service courses for practising teachers. The following passage,

quoted from the report of the Unesco Commission on the University of Lagos, indicates in outline the various services which an Institute

might be expected

to offer within the Faculty of

Education

The

Faculty of Education should at an early date establish an Institute of Education which would draw together teacher education in the Lagos area and enable various groups which are engaged in this work to be mutually helpful. It should also undertake research in some of the many problems in the primary and secondary schools in Nigeria. Part of this should be done by the members of the staff but much could be carried out profitably by students under staff direction. The Faculty of Education must also do its utmost to improve the work in the primary and secondary schools by offering its facilities and assistance in planning and conducting week-end seminars, vacation courses and special lecture series. Through such activities, the Faculty will not only assist in education in general but by keeping in touch with schools and teachers, it will be in a much stronger position to assist and advise its own students, (p. 57). 2

now been established in the UniverAhmadu Bello and the University Colleges

Institutes of Education have sities

of Ghana, Ibadan,

of Rhodesia and Makerere

and are planned and the forthcoming university of Zambia. ;

for

Kenya, Tanganyika

PRIORITIES IN SUBJECTS OF STUDY

One

of the recommendations of the Conference of African States

(Addis Ababa, 1961) was that some 60 per cent, of all students following university courses should be enrolled in subjects of a scientific or technical character. Figures presented to the Conference on Higher Education in 1962 (p. 24) 5 suggested, however, that not more than 35 per cent, of students in all universities in Africa were enrolled in such disciplines and the distribution of students among these subjects is shown below (Table I). This disproportion between the numbers of students enrolled in the faculty of arts and other faculties can be attributed to a variety of causes the heavy cost of hospitals, the time required to create the facilities needed for agricultural training, the generally non-scientific

—

EDUCATION IX THE UNIVERSITY TABLE

I

(X = 14,436) among

Distribution of Students

129

the

Major University

Disciplines

1961-2 (Quoted from the Report on Higher Education

in Africa,

Unesco.)

16-2

Science Engineering plus architecture

6-5

Medicine

7*3

Veterinary science

7

Agriculture

3'9

All others

65'4

100

background of undergraduates

—

of

all

to make

which tend

it

easier to

organize teaching in the arts subjects than the sciences. In

monwealth countries

too,

subjects of a scientific character

studying

all

is

very

The enrolment

others.

Commonwealth

proportion of

the

of

much all

lower than the number

first-year students in the

universities of Africa in 196 1-2

that the distribution of students

among

Com-

studying

students

shows

for

example

the principal disciplines

approximates closely to the estmates given by Unesco for

all

univer-

sities in Africa.

TABLE First-year

Enrolments

(ig6i-2)

in

11

all

Universities

in

Commonwealth

Countries in Africa

Total

Percentage

Science

434

156

Engineering Medicine Veterinary Science

137 125

4*9

Subject

Agriculture All others

4

4'5

—

131

47

1930

69-9

2761

AFRICAN EDUCATION

130

TECHNOLOGICAL STUDIES

Two

universities,

the

Kwame Nkrumah

University in

Kumasi

(Ghana) and the Royal College in Nairobi (Kenya), have special facilities for courses in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, land surveying, architecture and land development. Until recently, both were colleges of technology and although they have changed their names and status, both continue to provide training at a professional level in technical and commercial subjects. In each, courses are offered at undergraduate and post graduate level and programmes of research are being developed; in effect, then, these are technological

change their names accordingly is no The following table shows the extent to which these specialized studies were being taught in 1962:

and the decision

universities

more than

to

a recognition of the fact.

TABLE Enrolments at

Kwame Nkrumah

III

University (Kumasi)

and Royal College

(Nairobi)

Kwame Nkrumah ig62-63

Course

(Removed

Arts

to

Royal College ig62-6j

Cape Coast)

53

Science

208

80

Engineering Surveying

276 24

H3

Pharmacy

Fine Art

49 59 48 3°

Community Planning

35

Building

20

Agriculture Architecture

Town

Planning

Veterinary Science

Commerce Diploma and C.I.S. Domestic Science

Diploma Land Development

11

— — — — 760

In Nigeria, the provision of technological training ional level

is

25 — —

4i

23 — — —

H 33

38 23

473 at the profess-

assured by institutions of university status as in

Ghana

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY

131

and East Africa. Until recently, some of these functions were discharged by the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology which had branches in Ibadan, Zaria and Enugu. In i960, over onethird of its students were in the intermediate classes working for the General Certificate of Education, and the College thus provided a welcome source of candidates for higher education. In engineering, the College's efforts were concentrated on teaching at the degree level. In the view of the Ashby Commission, 'As the number of VI forms increase and as universities on the one hand and technical institutions on the other hand assume responsibility for many of the subjects which the Nigerian College was designed to teach we are of the opinion that the branches of the College should be integrated as quickly as possible into the university system of Nigeria', and this has now happened. The Ibadan branch of the College has been taken over by the University of Ife, the Enugu branch has been taken over by the University of Nigeria and the Zaria branch by Ahmadu Bello University. Each of these universities accordingly has now assumed responsibility for developing the teaching of those subjects which were formerly taught in the local branch of the Nigerian College of Science, Arts and Technology. Some courses, such as that for the Diploma in Pharmacy at Ife, have been fully integrated into the pattern of university studies, others such as the course in Secretaryship in the same university, are likely to be run down and eventually discontinued. .

.

.

THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES COMMISSION, NIGERIA Where there is more than one university in a country, the Government

plainly needs to be advised

priority

advice

which should be given

is

on the

special needs of each

and the

to each in allocating funds. 'This

needed, says the Ashby Commission

(p. 32),

because the

administration of universities involves highly technical questions and

no Ministry could expect to have among its civil servants all the necessary experience and expertise and wisdom. The body which gives advice must have the confidence of the Government on the one hand and of the universities on the other. It must have the interests of both at heart to protect the universities at all times from control from outside and to protect the public against needless duplication or :

wastage of scarce resources.

On

all

matters relating to universities

both sides must be willing to listen to its advice with respect. It must be at the same time a counsellor and a watchdog.' These functions have been discharged in Great Britain by the

AFRICAN EDUCATION

132

University Grants Committee, a body consisting of a full-time chair-

man and

sixteen

members drawn from

universities, industry

education departments or independent schools whose

members

and

(apart

from the chairman) serve without pay. The chairman is a Treasury official, though he is always drawn from the ranks of the universities and no heads of universities, politicians or civil servants are ever appointed as members. The Committee assesses the needs of universities, it receives from the Government a block grant for the universities which it distributes among them entirely according to its own discretion, it advises the Government on the needs of universities and consulted before new universities are set up. The Ashby Commission felt strongly that the most

it is

effective

way

of

determining the needs of universities in Nigeria and apportioning the

money voted

to them by the Government would be through a Committee functioning in virtually the same way as the University Grants Committee and it urged the establishment of a National Universities Commission on this model. It recommended that the N.U.C. should consist of a chairman and nine members, all part-time and giving their services free.

The chairman should be an

outstanding Nigerian citizen, chosen for his

and for the confidence which all political parties have in him. Of the nine members, two should be distinguished and experienced scholars from abroad invited to serve on the Committee for a limited period only the other seven should be Nigerians free from any group or partisan interests, drawn from the universities, the professions, the civil service, commerce and industry. If it is decided that the commission should reflect in a more formal way the interests of the Regions, we recommend that the Act setting up the Commission should include a sentence such as The Minister shall assure in his selection that the Commission shall be constituted in such a way that there are two members from each of the three distinction

:

—

official positions, the heads of Nigerian univershould not be eligible for membership nor should there be any Government representatives among the members, though it would be proper for the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education

Regions. Because of their sities

to attend as observer. (Investment in education, p. 33).

The

Commission and consider in consultation with universities, plans for such balanced development as may be required to enable the universities to meet national needs, (b) to examine the financial needs, both recurrent and capital, of universities seeking or receiving Federal grants and to present these needs to the Federal Minister of Educaprincipal functions of this National Universities

would be

(a) to initiate

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY

133

from the Federal would allocate to universities with such conditions attached as the Commission might think advisable. The Ashby Commission points out that the Regional Governments might be wise to adopt policies to govern the right to award degrees and that the N.U.C. would be an appropriate body to advise Governments (a) on ways in which universities might be established, (b) the minimum standards needed for the right to award degrees, and (c) tion,

and

(c)

to receive annually a block grant

Government which

it

the requirements for eligibility for Federal support.

These views have been endorsed more recently by the Commission on the University of Lagos, which was also asked to report on the proposal that a National Universities Commission should be set up. The Unesco Commission proposed various amendments in detail (of which the principal ones were that a full-time secretary of the Commission and a secretariat should be appointed and that responsibility for determining the right to award degrees and the minimum standards required, should be delegated to the All-Nigeria Academic Council) but supported the major proposal that the National Commission should decide the conditions of

eligibility for grants in aid

from the Federal Government (Report of Unesco Advisory Commission, pp. 8 1-82). 2

THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY In most countries in Africa, the university stands alone for it is the only institution of its kind. Academic links with universities in

neighbouring countries are accordingly of particular value both for the opportunities which they provide for the interchange of ideas and for the less tangible

another.

ways

in

which one

institution

may be

inspired

by

In some countries indeed, where the university cannot

afford to develop

all

the disciplines for which there

advantages to be gained from such an association

is

a

demand, the

may be much more

it seems a matter of simple sense at the present time for Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika to pool their resources for the teaching of those subjects for which a high rate of capital investment is required (like medicine) or for which there may be few students from any one country (like law). The Lockwood Working Party on Higher Education in East Africa accordingly recommended the creation of a Federal University of East Africa of which the three University Colleges of Makerere, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam would be members and the proposal was accepted by the Governments of Uganda, Kenya

specific; thus

colleges in

AFRICAN EDUCATION

134

and Tanzania. A Council of the University of East Africa has now been set up consisting of Principals of the Colleges, representatives of each of the Governments, representatives of the College Councils and Academic Boards, of the Inter-University Council and of the African Liaison Committee of the American Council of Education and the Federal University was inaugurated in 1963.

Each college of the university retains a considerable degree of freedom and it is assumed, for example, that all proposals for new courses and for their content will come from the teaching staff in the colleges, though proposals for new courses must be reviewed by the Academic Committee (consisting of the Principals and members of the Academic Boards). Furthermore, the principle of federation secures the freedom of the colleges to create their

own

syllabuses within the context of standards

and a degree structure set by the university as a whole and in some measure also their financial independence. Each college will prepare a development plan every three to five years which will be submitted to the East African University Grants Committee and the Committee will visit each college in turn and the colleges have agreed on a new form of degree structure by which all students in Arts and Sciences will be expected to study three subjects in their first year and two subjects in the second and third years. A few students who seem likely to gain more from a restricted programme of studies may be allowed to offer one subject only in their third year and perhaps only one subject in their second year too. In all cases, however, honours will be awarded on the class obtained in the final examinations and not on the ;

number

of subjects presented.

it is proposed that an intercollegiate admissions board should be established and this could be of considerable help to the

Finally

colleges

The

and

to the University in the selection of students.

federal basis of association

may be

particularly helpful to

which have been newly established; it provides a structure within which they can recommend students for degrees of their own university, it enables all colleges to benefit equally from the special teaching which any one of them may provide and it offers a much more intimate basis for the interchange of ideas (and sometimes staff) than could exist between entirely independent institutions. Indeed, this may prove to be the greatest of the advantages which colleges

number of workers in each field of few that without the opportunities for provides, there could be for many university

federation can confer for the intellectual activity is so

communication which

it

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY

135

teachers a real danger of 'desiccating isolation'. *

In this sense,

may

federation intellectual

contribute substantially towards the creation of an

community

in East Africa.

SUBJECTS AND COURSES OF STUDY Though a university may hope to develop courses of study subject for which there is a demand, some universities

in every

are undoubtedly better placed than others for the development of particular disciplines. In Nigeria, indeed, the Ashby Report has already sug-

gested that the newer universities should lay a special emphasis on particular subjects rather than attempt to teach

elsewhere; in Lagos for example,

it

all

the subjects taught

recommended the development

commerce and business administration and

of economics and social development of engineering studies, veterinary education and courses in administration and Arabic studies. At Nsukka, the Cook-Hannah-Taggart report had already suggested that the principal subjects of study might be (a) the biological and physical sciences, (b) agriculture, (c) engineering, (d) business management, (e) education and also (/) the humanities and of

sciences

at

;

Ahmadu

Bello, the

theology.

Elsewhere, universities have developed markedly different pro-

grammes

of study. In Ghana, the university of

Ghana

(Accra) offers

courses in the Faculties of Agriculture, Arts, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences,

Social Studies

and the

Institutes of African

of Education and of Public Administration (previously

Studies,

extra-mural

(Kumasi)

while

studies),

the

Kwame Nkrumah

University,

offers courses in the Faculty of Engineering, the

Schools of

Agriculture and Architecture and in Departments of Fine Arts and Crafts, Pharmacy, Science, Commerce, Administration, Accounts and Local Administration. In East Africa, the University College at Makerere offers courses

in the Faculties of Arts, Social Sciences, Medicine, Agriculture

and

Education, Science and Art; the Royal College courses in the Faculties of Arts, Science,

Engineering, Professional Studies, Veterinary

Science and Architecture; and the University College in

Dar

es

Salaam, courses in the Faculty of Arts, and the Faculty of Science.

There

between these which they are able

are, then, significant differences

in the specialized courses of study

there are also in the 'general subjects'. Virtually

the Faculty of Arts (the * See

The West African

universities to offer, as

all offer

courses in

Kwame Nkrumah University is an exception) Intellectual

Community, paper by E.

Shils, p. 21. 3

AFRICAN EDUCATION

136

though even here the range of subjects in which they can offer instruction varies considerably from one institution to another. Despite these limitations, a well-established university

committed

theless find itself

to providing a considerable

different courses, as the following 1

list

(extracted

may nevernumber of

from the calendar

for

96 1-2 of the University of Ibadan) 7 will show:

Faculty of Arts

two-year course). Three subjects taken from Geography, Economics, English, Government, History or Ancient History, Latin, Mathematics, Religious Studies. B.A. General

Classical

(a

Greek,

B.A. Honours

(a three-year

course).

Classical Greek,

Classics.

English, Geography, History, Latin, Mathematics.

Bachelor of Divinity degree

(a

three-year course).

Bachelor of Science in Economics

(a three-year course).

Postgraduate Diploma in Phonetics (a one-year course). Faculty of Science B.Sc. General degree (a three-year course). Three subjects taken in the first year

from Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Mathematics,

Physics, Zoology.

Two

subjects taken in years

two and three of which one from

Botany, Chemistry, Physics, Zoology, and one from Geography, Pure

and Applied Mathematics. B.Sc. Special degree (a three-year course).

Botany, Chemistry,

Geography, Mathematics, Physics, Zoology. Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences B.Sc. (Agriculture) with honours (a three-year course). B.Sc. (Agriculture) also a three-year course.

Faculty of Medicine

Second examination

for medical degrees (a two-year course).

Final Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree (a three-

year course).

Faculty of Engineering B.Sc. (Engineering) (a three-year course). Institute of Education

Post-graduate Certificate in Education

(a

one-year course).

College Diploma in Education (a one-year course). College Diploma in Child Study (an eighteen-month course).

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY

137

Institute of Librarianship

Registration examination (one-year course) leading to Associate of

Library Association (A.L.A.). College Diploma in Librarianship (two-year course).

The College also has a Department of Extra-Mural Studies and houses the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research. It proposes to create a Faculty of Law in the near future.

ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS Until recently, the scarcity of secondary schools able to offer education

beyond the School

Certificate obliged universities to

admit

students at the School Certificate level and provide during a preli-

minary year the teaching which would normally be given in school. Such was the practice for example in the universities at Ibadan, Accra and Makerere.

Now

that the

number

of schools able to offer instruction at the

post-School Certificate level has been substantially increased, preli-

minary courses are likely to disappear. They have been discontinued at Ibadan and Accra, though the University of Ibadan allows candidates to sit for the entrance examination if they have a School Certificate (with passes at credit standard) or a General Certificate of Education (with 'O' level passes in English and four other subjects). To be enrolled in these and most other universities in the Commonwealth countries in Africa, a qualification approximately of the Higher School Certificate and

School Certificate

is

now

at the level

distinctly higher

required* and in some

(e.g.

than the

the University

College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland), these higher entrance requirements have been in force since their inception.

Not

all

African universities feel able to set this standard of entry,

however, nor are they willing to do so. Indeed, it seems likely that some will continue to admit students on the basis of a good School Certificate, until post-School Certificate teaching is far more available than

it is

at present, or at least until

some

effective alternative to

Nor can there be any doubt that there are many students with no better qualification than a School Certificate for whom it would be desirable on social and economic grounds to provide the opportunity of a university education; in Malawi, for example, the need for trained men and it

has been developed (such as intermediate colleges).

* Thus candidates for direct entry at Ibadan must satisfy the full minimum requirements of the University of London and any additional requirements for entry in specific degree subjects.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

138

women

is

urgent though there are very few able to meet university

entrance requirements with a Higher School Certificate (fourteen pupils were enrolled in upper sixth forms in 1961) 8 and in Zambia where a similar demand exists, only forty students took 'A' level

examinations in 1962. Candidates with a School Certificate or a general Certificate of education at the Ordinary level might go to the University of Nigeria

(Nsukka) for example where they can be admitted to any degree course if they possess a W.A.S.C. (Grade I or II) or a General Certificate of Education in six subjects passed at one and the same examination; or possibly to the University College of Cape Coast (Ghana) which offers four-year courses in arts, sciences and education for students with a minimum of five 'O' level passes in relevant subjects (including English language) or again, to one of the projected new universities in Malawi (which will admit 120-150 students selected on the results of the C.O.S.C. at the end of September 1965) and Zambia if, as seems likely, these should decide to admit students at the Ordinary level. The University College at Salisbury, whose entrance requirements are at present based on its special relationship with the University of London, has also under consideration the admission of students at School Certificate or 'O' level and the introduction of a general degree. 9

Moreover, there is, in more than one country, at present a pool of more mature students to whom it would seem unreasonable to deny the opportunity of obtaining a university qualification and the recent Report on the Development of a University in Northern Rhodesia, older and

ig6j, 10 makes the interesting proposals that the

new

university

Lusaka) should make its degrees and awards available to private students working externally and, in addition, that it should include among its awards, an associate degree for students who have completed two years of full-time study

(which

it

proposes should be established

(or a longer period if

at

pursued part-time).

Universities in Africa vary then in their qualifications for admission

and while some require qualifications at approximately the level of the Higher School Certificate, an increasing number are willing to accept students at the post-School Certificate level and either provide the extra teaching they require in a longer course of study or offer a special course of study leading to a less specialized qualification.

STAFFING THE UNIVERSITIES IN AFRICA A majority of the staff now serving in African

universities are

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY expatriates, and both

as a

139

matter of principle and economic expedi-

ency universities will normally wish to appoint nationals in their become available. According to estimates prepared for the Unesco Conference on Higher Education at Tananarive £io,62) 5 only some 10 per cent, of existing university staffs are African* but it seems reasonable to assume that this proportion could be increased to 90 per cent, by 1980. During this period however, it will also be necessary to increase gradually the number of students for whom each teacher is responsible from the present ratio of about 1 :y (in 1962) to place as these

about

On

1

:i5 in 1980.

these assumptions, the Conference was informed that

some

fourteen thousand Africans and seven thousand expatriate university teachers will need to be recruited during the period

Such

huge commitment seems more credible

up

to

1980.

one considers the estimated number of replacements over a fairly short period such as the next five years, and these are shown in Table IV. a

It is unlikely that

the large

number

if

of African university teachers

that will be required during the next decade can be trained in university

work by the usual methods

universities the

some

need

for a

and some

of appointment as junior lecturers

learning 'on the job' as rapidly as they

may be

recruited and in

more imaginative arrangement

to ensure

professional preparation as teachers has already been foreseen.

The Cook-Hannah-Taggart Report on the Universitv of Nigeria (University of Xigen'a, Eastern Region Document Xo. 4, of 1958) 12 noted, for example, that the crucial problem in the future success of the university will be the

problem of staff. Although it is assumed that the University of Nigeria may want to employ certain foreign professors in the initial stages of its development, it is also assumed that eventually the university will be staffed in the main by Nigerian scholars. Thought should be given to the development of a plan which would result in the selection of twenty-five to forty Nigerian students who have already reached the B.S. or M.S. level of training. This group should then be entered in foreign universities for doctoral and, if possible, in-service study. Thus, when the buildings are completed and classes are ready to start, a corps of Nigerian staff members would be prepared at least in junior staff roles to assume academic responsibilities. The advisers cannot put too much emphasis on the importance of developing this aspect of planning

A

(p. 7).

short and lucid statement of the main facts disclosed when information was collected in preparation fcr the Unesco Conference on Higher Education in Africa is given in Staffiing African Universities (A. M. Carr-Saunders) (Overseas Develop*

ment

Institute) 1963.

u

AFRICAN EDUCATION-

140

TABLE IV Estimated Staff Requirements for mid- African Universities {ig6i-$) assuming 8$ per cent, replacement in four years (quoted from

Higher Education

in Africa, p. 31).

Subject

Science Engineering

Medicine Agriculture

Veterinary Science

Arts, letters

1061

1965

650 230 310 290

55° 200 260

5°

40

^53°

1,300

650

55°

340 30 50

290 20

1,070

900

2,600

2,200

250

Law, economics, sociology

Theology Other

Totals

In practice, students,

it

still less

is

40

of course difficult to find twenty-five Nigerian

forty

who

could be designated for such a period of

and the temptation will always be strong appoint any suitably qualified person directly to

in-service training overseas in

such schemes to

the staff of the university in Africa.

An

alternative solution,

and one now being explored, is to arrange who have been confirmed in their

for African university teachers

appointments to spend a period of study-leave in other universities which have been longer established. As the requirements of each teacher are usually quite specialized, it seems likely that schemes developed between universities for the benefit of specific individuals will be a more successful way of approaching this question of training than comprehensive schemes of the kind proposed by the CookHannah-Taggart Commission.

THE EXPANSION OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Xo

university in middle Africa has yet reached

its

maximum

size or

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY initiated courses in all the studies

it

would wish

to teach

I

and

4I

may

all

be expected to expand rapidly in the years ahead. The following figures (which are extracted from the report of the Unesco Conference at Tananarive, p. 70 5 ) give some indication of the number of students that may be expected to enrol for higher education of

all

kinds

(at universities, training colleges

schools) and suggest that this

is

and higher professional

likely to increase sixfold

during the

period 1965-80.

TABLE v Estimated Number of Students in Higher Education Abroad, period ig6^-8o

1965 Estimated population

{all kinds) at

igyo

1975

Home and

ig8o

188

209

234

264

46,000

80,000

144,000

274,000

(millions)

Estimated enrolments Estimated per cent,

•35

•89

'55

of relevant age-

groups

Universities

must plan

and other

institutions of higher education in Africa

for a greater increase than this, however, because seven

now receiving higher education are studying abroad and this number will need to be reduced as a matter of policy. On the assumption that one student in four will read for a degree and that degree courses are about twice as long as other courses at the higher level, the ratio of total enrolments of degree to non-degree students would be 40:60. Total enrolments in the universities of middle Africa and other institutions of higher education might then be expected to be roughly as shown in Table VI. These figures suggest that African universities may have to face an increase in student enrolments in 1980 nine times greater than that

out of ten students

estimated for 1965, ample justification

—

it

ambitious programmes of expansion which

now

would seem all

—for

the

African universities

envisage.

Some, such

as the University of Nigeria,

have already declared their

intention of stablizing enrolments at a total of about five thousand

and

if

other universities set a similar limit,

estimates prepared for the

it is

Unesco Conference

at

evident from the

Tananarive that

AFRICAN EDUCATION

142

more It

universities will is

need to be established during the next decade.

well to remember, however, that the prospect of further

expansion and even the existence

is

full

closely related in

development of universities already all

in

countries to the central facts of the

TABLE VI Estimated Enrolments of Degree and non-Degree Students, igbi-80*

Degree students

Non-degree students

Total

4°%

60%

7,200 11,000

10,800

18,000

17,000

28,000

1970

22,000

J

46,000

34,000 69,000

115,000

99,000

148,000

247,000

1961

1965

975 1980

national economy.

Most

universities receive

56,000

more than 80 per

cent.

of their income from the government or government-controlled

corporations and any dramatic change in the world price of the

commodities which are their country's main source of revenue (cocoa, for example) would be an immediate threat to the ability of the universities to expand their teaching and even to continue it at existing levels.

THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE University education has been developed with courage and

and

initiative,

an astonishing pace during the post-war years. In some countries (Sierra Leone, Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika), the speed with which the new universities have been established seems to have exceeded that by which the schools have increased their output of pupils. This has no doubt been an advantageous position because it has given the newer universities the opportunity to consolidate existing courses and it may also allow them to enrol more students during the next few years without significant changes in the structure of courses or numbers of teaching staff. It should at

enable substantial progress to be

made

for responsibilities currently discharged

But *

it is

the enterprise

shown

too in the training of staff

by

in asserting

Quoted from Report on Higher Education

expatriates.

new

in Africa

responsibilities

(Unesco 1963,

p. 42).

and

EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY them

discovering ways of fulfilling

143

in this period of rapid expansion

thought has been given to the kinds of study which seem most appropriate to African needs and to the ways in which these may be fitted in to the universities' interpretation of their role in society. This spirit of inquiry is most apparent in their attitude to issues such as the introduction of 'new subjects' (like journalism and business administration), standards of admission and the type of students they expect to recruit and is entirely characteristic of their concept of the university's responsibility to society. Pragmatic as some of these developments may appear to be, their purpose is in the highest that

is

most impressive. In

all

universities, considerable

sense constructive. Finally, despite differences between the universities in their approach to specialized fields of study, all are deeply aware of their responsibility to provide a setting and a stimulus to creative thinking. 'If a university has any unique purpose that no other institution can quite fulfil, it is or should be as a place for weighing fundamental thoughts. They also serve who only stand and think. Indeed, it may be less important for a university to have a cyclotron than it is to have a soul. The protection of men thinking is the fundamental, the quintessential duty of universities; to this duty, everything else is secondary and subordinate, even a gift for the endowment of a college of practical arts.' 13 Though the production of highly trained men and women may seem to some a sufficient purpose at a time of rapid growth, the universities in Africa are keenly aware that their reputations must eventually be established on this ability 'to weigh fundamental thoughts'.

REFERENCES Carr- Saunders, A.

M. New

Universities Overseas (Allen

and Unwin,

1961).

Unesco. Report of the Unesco Advisory Commission on the Establishment of the University of Lagos (Paris, 1961). Saunders and Dowuona. The West African Intellectual Community (Ibadan University Press, 1962). Ashby, Sir Eric. Pattern of Universities in non-European Societies. (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1961). in Africa, Report of the Conference held at

Unesco. Higher Education Tananarive,

icjf>2

(Paris,

1963).

AFRICAN EDUCATION

144 6.

Ashby,

et al. Investment in

Education (Federal Government Printer,

Lagos, i960). 7. 8.

9.

University of Ibadan. Calendar of University College oflbadan, ig6i-2. Government Printer, Nyasaland. Committee of Inquiry into African Education (Zomba, 1962).

American Council on Education. Memorandum on Educational Issues and Developments in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland (Chairman C. W. :

10.

de Kiewiet) August, 1962. Report on the Development of a University

in

Northern Rhodesia

(1963)11.

12.

13.

Carr-Saunders, A.

M.

Staffing African Universities (Overseas

Develop-

ment Institute, 1963). Government of Eastern Region, Nigeria. The University of Nigeria, Eastern Region Document No. 4 (1958). Jones, H. M. et al.: The University and the New World (University of Toronto, 1963). | (p. 108)

ment

The Uganda

Education Commission recommends the establish-

of a National Advisory Council for Adult Education to co-ordinate

the activities of

all

agencies engaged in adult education.

6 Training the Teachers The

greatest obstacle to the expansion of education in

countries today

is

all

African

the shortage of teachers and a further problem

which is associated with this is the decline in standards of teaching in some countries in recent years. These are related issues, for both seem to stem directly from the decision to expand educational programmes very rapidly and indeed they may be no more than the growing pains of the movement towards universal primary education. Even so, the resources available in a number of countries for meeting these twin problems are so varied and in some places so inadequate that a drastic reorganization and redirection of teacher-training programmes seems inevitable and in

some countries It is

this

is

already well advanced.

with this process of reorganization and the steps

taken to establish teaching as a profession in chapter

is

its

own

now

being

right that this

concerned.

WHO

TRAINS THE TEACHERS? Most training colleges in Commonwealth

countries were originally

established by the bodies responsible for the majority of the schools

the voluntary agencies; and colleges which have been set up by the

Government have either been established at a later date to provide where no other provision existed, or to increase the number of trained teachers where agency colleges were unable to do so. It was in such circumstances, for example, that a training centre for Protectorate teachers was established in Gambia in 1949 and another

training

at

Lobatsi in Bechuanaland in 1956.

More recently, independence and the demand for a rapid expansion of education which has accompanied

it,

have led to a substantial

increase in the provision for teacher training and in

some

countries,

indeed, additional colleges have been built in anticipation of political

independence. In Western Nigeria, for example, two out of three of all colleges have been established since 1950 and three out of four of the Grade III colleges since that date.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

146

TABLE

I

Establishment of Training Colleges

Pre-1940 1940-4

Grade II Grade III

A new

7

2

1

2

in

^950-4

1945-9

J

Western Nigeria (1959)

1955-9

Total

5

7

9

3°

3

22

29

67

authority in the field of teacher-training, and one whose

influence seems likely to increase,

is

the local authority or local

government council. The decision to provide full primary education for all in Eastern* and Western Nigeria created a situation in which many new schools were needed and a number were opened by local authorities a natural consequence of this decision to enter the field of primary education was the further decision to establish training ;

colleges to train the teachers they needed.

In

fact,

twenty-seven

been established by local authorities in the Western Region since 1953 and twelve in the Eastern Region since 1957. Local authority colleges have not yet been opened in Ghana or most other Commonwealth countries in Africa, but the need to train many more teachers and the difficulties which the agencies face in financing any further development of their training facilities, may well oblige the colleges have

central authority either to undertake an expansion of teacher-training facilities itself or, as

seems more

likely in

some, to authorize local or

provincial authorities to do so.

Despite the emergence of local authority colleges in Nigeria (and

Western Nigeria

now

controlled by

one-third of

all

Government

or local authorities), by far the greater proportion of

colleges in

facilities for training

are

teachers in primary schools

countries by the voluntary agencies, as

is still

may be

provided in

seen from table

all

II.

THE SIZE OF TRAINING COLLEGES number of shown in the table may give a misleading picture of the contribution they make to teacher-training. Thus, eighty-three students passed their final examination in Government colleges in Uganda Colleges van- considerably in size, however, and the

colleges

* Universal primary education was introduced in the Eastern Region in February 1957 but the cost of the programme rose so rapidly that the Regional Government was obliged to re-introduce fees for the upper Primary classes in February 1958. Education remained free in Infants I and II and Standard I. In 1964, free education was extended to Standard III.

TRAINING THE TEACHERS

147

in i960 (an average of just over forty students per college gradu-

ating each year)

from agency twenty per

compared with nine hundred and forty-nine students same year (an average of just over

colleges in the

college).

TABLE

11

Training Colleges in Commonwealth Countries in Africa

Country and year Basutoland (1962)

Bechuanaland (1961)

Local

Voluntary

Government

Authority

Agency

—

22

— — — — — —

4

12

5

27 — 2 — — — — — —

1

Gambia (1963) Ghana (1964) Kenya (1963)

1

—4

Nigeria (1962)

Northern Eastern

Western Lagos Zambia (1963) Malawi (1962) Sierra Leone (1963) Rhodesia (1963)

2 1

2 3

2

Swaziland (1962)

1

Tanganyika (1964)

4

Uganda

3

*

(1961)

Lower Training

Colleges,

some of which may

—7 — 42 33

29 117 65 3

9

9 3

27* 2 18 33

offer higher courses.

In colleges where there are fewer than a hundred students in all, often difficult to provide specialist training and manifestly im-

it is

possible to do so in the very small college with perhaps thirty stu-

dents and two tutors. For professional reasons, then, there seem to be good grounds for re-organizing the work of these smaller institutions into fewer but larger colleges, though some voluntary agencies may find these reasons difficult to accept. Such a recommendation was made in Malawi for example, in 1952, by the East and Central Africa Study Group but (with the exception of teacher-training for women undertaken by the Presbyterian Missions which has been concentrated at Kapeni College, Blantyre) attempts to implement it have apparently been resisted. In 1961, according to the Annual

AFRICAN EDUCATION

148

Report, eleven colleges were sharing nine hundred and seventy-two students.*

In Kenya, the considerable number of small training colleges with classes and therefore a limited range of specialist staff sets a similar problem. 'Plans are in hand', says the Triennial Survey, 'to

few

reduce the number of such colleges by amalgamation and to produce larger colleges where it will be possible to have a larger and therefore more specialist staff' {Triennial Survey, igj8-6o, p. 28). There were in fact forty institutions providing T3 and T4 courses for three thousand two hundred and forty-five students in i960, an average of well below a hundred students in each institution. In Uganda, similarly, some of the colleges are too small to be economical and effective and there is an obvious case for an amalgamation of some of the smaller colleges, though this may be difficult to achieve when colleges belong to different missionary agencies. It is worthy of note, however, that two small colleges, one Roman Catholic and the other Anglican, have agreed to amalgamate to form a larger inter-denominational government training college. In Tanganyika, there are twenty-two teacher-training colleges but only five with a hundred or more students, and five have a

maximum capacity of only fifty students. Many of the colleges in other countries

also

seem too small

to

permit the organization of an effective training programme. In Eastern Nigeria the majority of the agency colleges (seventy-five out of eighty-one) had less than one hundred students on roll in 1959, and there were twelve colleges with less than fifty students. Indeed, a classification of colleges by size shows that only forty-four out of a total of one hundred and twenty-five colleges had more than one

hundred students on

roll.

TABLE

III

Enrolments in Training Colleges

Under 50

Grade Grade

in Eastern

50-gg

Nigeria igsg

100-199

O ver 200 3

II

5

5

l6

III

7

64

24

1

* The Report of the Survey Team on Education in Malawi {Education for development, American Council on Education, T964) recommended the replacement of existing colleges by three large Government-operated colleges.

TRAINING THE TEACHERS

149

In Western Nigeria and Ghana, the average number of students in

Grade

—

in Western Nigeria ninety-three in and a hundred and forty-one in Grade II colleges Ghana one hundred and fifty in Certificate A and B colleges

each college

is

appreciably higher

III colleges

(1957); in (i960). Even so, three of the colleges in

and Wiawso (Kumasi)) have some

The

difficulties of

Ghana

(at Offinso,

Prampram

sixty students each.

the small college are many. The Report of the

Planning Mission in Tanganyika notes, for example, that in some

women's

training colleges there may be four staff attempting to train,

educate and mature

and twenty

years.

less

than

fifty

The Report

young people aged between sixteen

continues: 'The size of the budget

precluded the purchase of a wide range of books and of investment in additional

equipment such

geographical isolation of

as cine-projectors

many

and gramophones. The

of the colleges militates against their

providing a generally educative environment. Such colleges lack the

and the amenities that should

variety of resources institutions.

people

who

The

students have

are better educated,

In other words,

many

little

exist in

such

opportunity of mixing with

however

slightly,

than themselves.

of the colleges are too small, too isolated and in

consequence too limited in outlook.' Such observations led the Commission to the general conclusions that no college should recurit less than two hundred and forty to three hundred students, and that all should be established in places where students will have the opportunity of wider and fuller social contacts and it is significant that the Ministry of Education has already obtained the co-operation of the voluntary agencies in planning the reorganization of training ;

colleges in this way.

TEACHING AS AN EMERGENT PROFESSION The number of trained teachers exceeds the number most countries and teacher in five

is

untrained, in Zambia, only one in

anvika no teachers are employed without the for the

Grade

of untrained in

Kenya, only one forty and in Tang-

in some, substantially so; in

II Teacher's Certificate.

A

minimum

training

very different situation

found, however, in those countries which have implemented

is

full

primary education for all, in Ghana and the Eastern and Western Regions of Nigeria, in each of which many thousands of untrained teachers are now in service. In 1959, for example, as many as three out of four teachers in the primary schools of the Eastern Region of Nigeria were untrained while in the Western Region the proportion w as roughly one in three and in Ghana, despite strenuous efforts T

AFRICAN EDUCATION

i5o

during the preceding years, one in two. Such a heavy access of untrained teachers has had dramatic and depressing effects on standards of teaching and inevitably

on the teacher's

TABLE

status also.

IV

Trained and Untrained Teachers in Service in

Commonwealth Countries

Country and year

Basutoland (1962)

Africa*

Primary Schools Un-

Secondary Schools

Trained

trained

Trained

1,647

1,025

104

668 216

608

27 98

Bechuanaland (1961)

Gambia (1963) Ghana (1962) Kenya (1962)

in

Untrained

— H

12,618

129 11,766

657

32 428

i5>738

4,870

3 11

61

6,734 21,272

4,853

Eastern

23,319

425 892

Western (1962)

13,393

26,756

5,261

1,834

1,176

6,027 4,o45

174 192

Nigeria (1962)

Northern

161

(Grammar)

1,550 (Grammar,

&

Com.

Com. & Lagos

Zambia (1962) Malawi (1962) Sierra Leone (1963)

i,392

^723

Rhodesia (1963) Swaziland (1962) Tanganyika (1962)

n,334

4,30i

Uganda

11,114

(1961) *

•

These

Not unexpectedly,

73 1 10,273

figures

•

191

—

443

473 201

347 43

87

6

4°7 N.A.

IQ 5

47 378 198

Sec.

Mod.)

(Grammar

2,527

Sec.

(as

Mod.)

above)

N.A. 78

432 50

do not include unassisted schools.

reports were heard in one country after another

of a decline in the teacher's status in society, of salary scales which

were out of line with what was paid in the civil service to people of comparable education and of resignations from the teaching service on an unprecedented scale.* 'In the past, a witness told the Banjo Commission in Western Nigeria, the teacher held an honoured place in society now only too frequently, he is looked upon as a man who ;

* See for example the Report on the Educational System of Eastern Nigeria (1962), chapter IX on 'The Education, Training and Status of the Teaching Profession.'

TRAINING THE TEACHERS

151

cannot find anything better for himself. ... In the past, the headship of even a primary school when schools were fewer, was a post of esteem and dignity. But today when an untrained teacher with a Standard VI level of education can be a headmaster, headship of a

primary school means nothing socially' (pp. 48-49). 2 In Ghana, 'nearly 3,000 teachers resigned from their appointments during the years 1956-60 to take up posts in other professions and the average wastage from the teaching profession was 8*7 per cent., by far the highest rate of wastage in any category of employment in the country.' 3

In Malawi too, the Committee of Inquiry heard

many com-

were too short and that teachers often reached their maximum salary at an early age and therefore could expect no further advancement during the rest of their service. A T4 teacher, for example, commencing at the age of twenty would reach plaints that the salary scales

his

maximum salary at the age of 28. 4

Underlying these different complaints, the general issue seemed to be that, over a fairly short span of years, the status of the teacher had been drastically reduced, firstly because many teachers were patently unable to discharge their duties efficiently and, secondly, because there had been no adjustment in salary scales which would enable teaching to compare favourably with the many opportunities for more remunerative employment occurring elsewhere. It is also evident that future development plans must have a direct bearing on the professional status of teachers. More than one country, though firmly committed to the eventual achievement of free primary education for

all,

has recognized that the cost of training sufficient

teachers plus the recurrent charges which this pally salaries),

would be too heavy

would

entail (princi-

a load for the present

and has

frankly accepted a target for the immediate future which provides less

than

full

primary education. In Zambia for example where a majority main urban areas, it is

of serving teachers have been trained, 'in the

the intention for social as well as for educational reasons, to give every

A to Standard IV) and to provide further facilities for 40 per cent, of those to complete the full eight-year course (sub-Standard A to Standard VI)' though the provision of education in rural areas will be substantially child six years of primary education (sub-Standard

less.

In Malawi where approximately one teacher in two was unCommittee of Inquiry felt that 'no expansion of the

trained, the

present teacher training

programme should be considered

for the

152

AFRICAN EDUCATION

1962-7 planning period' the very great need for

(p. 199);

more

'We

frequently had urged

trained teachers.

We

upon us

are very conscious

of this need and fully realize that our approval of the present teacher

programme means that* the elimination of the untrained must remain a very long-term policy. We accept this position reluctantly but have no hesitation in reaffirming our recommendation that the secondary schools must be given the highest priority in educational development. Only when the financial requirements of this programme have been met should any consideration be given to expenditure on an expansion of the present schemes for teacher

training

teacher

training' (p. 197). 4 If this proposal

is

accepted, though the proportion

of uncertificated teachers in 'Malawi will

fall from 50 per cent, in i960 to 30 per cent, in 1967, there will still be as many as three thousand untrained teachers in employment. But standards are not necessarily linked with the further expansion of facilities for teacher-training, and in any country where a majority of serving teachers have been trained, much could certainly be done to raise morale and hence standards if some of the preliminary steps

were taken which now seem necessary

to ensure the recognition of

teaching as a profession. In general terms, these appear to be (a) the recognition of one type of qualification or certification for

all

teachers

primary schools (and in secondary modern and middle schools where these exist), (b) the adoption of a unitary salary scale with provision for its adjustment as changes occur in the salaries paid to men and women with similar qualifications in other professions and the civil service, and (c) the creation of a body which shall be responsible at the national level for the award of the teaching qualification. The Banjo Commission, for example, envisages a Council of Principals of Training Colleges, probably in association with the University Institute of Education and observers from the Ministry, which would eventually moderate teachers' examinations and recommend suitable candidates for the award of the national certificate. Such measures would undoubtedly help to make teaching more attractive, and if they lead to a reduction in the number of teachers now leaving the schools, could make a substantial contribution both to the development of higher standards and to a sense of professional in

responsibility.

THE TEACHING QUALIFICATION The qualification which may be awarded on completing

to the

non-graduate teacher

his training often varies according to the level of educa-

TRAINING THE TEACHERS

153

tion reached before his training began. Qualifications exist in

countries for the teacher

primary school,

(b)

who

most

has completed (a) eight years in the

two, three or four years in the secondary school

(without taking the School Certificate), and

(c)

a secondary school

course leading to the award of a School Certificate.

In Kenya, though all teachers follow two-year courses of training, any one of four different courses and qualifications may be taken depending on the applicant's qualifications when he begins training. Candidates with a School Certificate may qualify for a K.T.I. certificate, those who completed the secondary school course but were not awarded a School Certificate may qualify for a T2 and candidates who have completed eight years' primary education may be awarded a T3 certificate if they passed K.A.P.E. or a T4 certificate if not. In Tanganyika, on the other hand, primary school teachers normally qualify at two levels only, Grade C for those who have completed primary school and Grade B for those who have completed at least two years in the secondary school; Grade A certificates are awarded to teachers who have already taken a Cambridge School Certificate. Malawi retains, for the time being, three levels of qualification, the T4 certificate based on two years' training following full primary schooling, the T3 based on two years' training following two years in the secondary school and T2 based on two years' training following the School Certificate. In Zambia, where a beginning was made in 1961 to up-grade the minimum academic level for teacher training courses from Standard (full primary) to Form II (two years secondary), qualifications for primary teachers have now been reduced to two, a two-year course for lower primary teachers who must have completed two years in the secondary school (L2) and a course for upper primary teachers who have completed more than two years and preferably four, in the secondary school (U2). For secondary teachers who have taken the School Certificate, there is also a three-year course, S3. In Uganda likewise, the minimum academic level for training as a primary teacher (Grade III) is the Junior Secondary Certificate (two years' secondary schooling*) and the course lasts four years. A similar but simpler pattern of qualifications is to be found in the countries of West Africa. In Ghana, two certificates were awarded

VI

* Junior secondary schools often consist of two classes which are taught by two teachers one of them being the head teacher. The scope for specialization is accordingly limited, and the syllabus and methods of teaching may not differ markedly from those taught in the upper classes of the primary schools.

AFRICAN EDUCATION

154

until recently, Certificate

who complete

B

(for

primary school teachers) to students

two year course of training after the award of their Middle School leaving certificate and have at least one year's experience as a primary teacher and Certificate A (for primary and middle a

;

who complete a two-year course after B or the W.A.S.C. In 1962, it was decided to B course and to require all middle-school

school teachers) for students the award of Certificate abolish the Certificate leavers

who wished

to

become teachers

In Eastern Nigeria, candidates after

primary school

who

take a further

to study for four years.

who complete two

may be awarded a Grade

two

year's training

and those Grade III and

III certificate

years' training after completing

two years' teaching in school may be awarded a Grade II Certificate. Grade I Certificates are awarded after five years' teaching following a Grade II Certificate and a pass in two subjects at Advanced Level but no further training is required for this qualification. In Northern Nigeria certificates may be awarded at Grade I, II or III levels for qualifications and training similar in scope to those prescribed in the Eastern Region and Grade IV Certificates are also awarded to teachers who have satisfactorily completed a four-year course after finishing Class

IV

(primary).

Despite this variety of qualifications, significant steps have already

been taken

in a

number

of countries towards a single professional

in Uganda, all primary teachers already receive the same qualification (the Grade III Certificate), in Tanganyika, the Unesco Mission envisaged one level of entry for all primary teachers and the ultimate disappearance qualification for the teacher in primary schools;

C

Malawi the Committee of Inquiry enT4 courses and in Western Nigeria, the Banjo Commission has recommended the gradual introduction of a National Teachers' Certificate of Grade I rank which will eventually supersede the Grade II and Grade III qualifications. of the

Grade

teacher; in

visaged the disappearance of the

In Eastern Nigeria too, one advanced teacher training college provides a course leading to the Grade

now

I certificate.

be strengthened as primary education becomes it will then be necessary to require all students wishing to become primary school teachers to have completed several years in the secondary school. In some countries indeed (e.g. Western Nigeria), the School Certificate is already envisaged as

This tendency

more widely

the

minimum

will

available, for

qualification for entry to a training college.

There are

then professional as well as demagogic reasons why it seems probable that the present diversity of teaching qualifications will be pro-

TRAINING THE TEACHERS gressively rationalized

become

and simplified; and

155

as this is achieved,

it

will

easier to persuade teachers to accept training of the kind best

suited to their interests and capacity.

TRAINING PROGRAMMES Most

— AN

APPRAISAL

training courses for teachers in primary schools have a dual

function

—they are intended to further the student's education

as to prepare

him

they achieve the

for his

first is

work

as a teacher

and the extent

to

as well

which

necessarily one of the conditions for achieving

the second. Colleges, however, can hardly be expected to advance

academic knowledge any further in a two year course same period, and most colleges are less well provided both in staff and equipment than the normal secondary school. It must be assumed then that the their students'

of training than a secondary school might do in the

standard achieved by the majority of students after two years training in a college following

high as that of pupils

and

is

on eight years

who have

in

primary school

is

seldom

as

spent two years in a secondary school

appreciably below the standard set in the 'O' level examination

of the General Certificate of Education or the School Certificate.

This no doubt is one of the reasons why training courses often seem more concerned to give the student exact instructions on how to teach the syllabuses of lower classes in the primary school, than opportunities to exercise his judgement and think imaginatively. Low educational standards are also no doubt one of the principal reasons for the low status which some Commonwealth countries accord to teacher-training and such attitudes may be reflected in the standards of those appointed to train the teachers. During the early ;

years of the period of expansion in Eastern Nigeria, for example,

was

felt

that

many

of the junior

members

of the staff in

all

it

training

centres and colleges were inadequately qualified for teaching in such institutions 6

and

Commission

that 'most graduates

Western Nigeria, one witness stated to the Banjo would Tank headship of a grammar school above the principalship of a teacher-training college though a in

teacher-training college ought to be a post-secondary institution' (p. 49).

One consequence

of this outlook

qualified staff tend to be

found

in

is

of course that the better

grammar

schools rather than

training colleges.

The conditions under which some colleges are obliged to operate may also contribute to depressed standards of work. The Committee of Inquiry into African Education in Malawi reported that the atmosphere of instruction in a number of colleges was affected by their

AFRICAN EDUCATION

156

close association with a primary school;

and indeed, the practice

in

room with the primary school pupils and to wear the same uniform must have suggested that the college was hardly more than an extension of the school. The Committee also noted that many of the colleges visited some

colleges of requiring students to share a dining

gave insufficient attention to practical teaching ability and the making of apparatus by the students and lacked a well-staffed demonstration school where activity methods could be seen in use. Little evidence was found of informal activities such as a students' union or student societies an essential part of successful schemes of training and both libraries and the specialist teachers of English who might encourage the use of them were rare. Nor was there any evidence in a number of colleges of co-operation between the staff and any inspector in the Ministry of Education on the planning of courses, in examining or in developing co-ordination between the colleges themselves. Similar criticisms have been voiced about a number of colleges in other countries. In Uganda, students at some colleges (it seems) have to wear uniforms, are divided into 'classes' which are to some extent controlled by appointed prefects and may be expected to do compulsory study for most nights of the week under the supervision of a

—

—

member of staff. In such colleges, apparently they may not be minimum of personal responsibility and would not be trusted to run their own affairs through an elected students' council. duty

allowed a

however, a measure of the rapidity of educational change that a of other colleges have flourishing students' councils and that their principals, through a policy of courtesy and respect towards students, have been notably successful in inducing in them the kind It

is,

number

of mature and adult response which

is

a

major purpose of professional

training.

In some countries, too, concern has been expressed at the apparent tendency to regard the qualifying tests as a competitive examination rather than an acceptable measure of professional competence. In Western Nigeria, the Banjo Commission has criticized both the number of questions which students are expected to answer and the time limit within which the examination must be completed and

thought the failure rate to be

far too high.

We

were very perturbed by the high proportion of failures in the examinend of each of these two-year courses as given us in the Ministry's brief. We noted that while in 1955 about one-quarter of the candidates for the Grade III Certificate were referred in the final examin-

ation at the

ation, the proportion of failures has risen almost steadily until

it

now

stands

TRAINING THE TEACHERS

157

over one-third of the candidates. We regard this as very frustrating for all concerned and consider that such results constitute an unfruitful use of public funds. ... If one-third of candidates failing in (for 1959) at

Grade

III

is

regarded by the Ministry as 'disappointing', the steadily Grade II examinations with its 1959 failure rate

rising failure rate in the

of over 55 per cent, deserves a stronger adjective. We suggest that 'fantastic' would not be inappropriate as many of the candidates are teachers who already hold a Grade III Certificate and have been teaching for at least two

years (p. 75).

Most

of these criticisms refer to courses at a particular level and to

number of colleges, but show the need for an examination not only of the principles on which a national programme of

the discipline and attitudes found in a limited in the aggregate they

methods but of

teacher-training can be developed.

THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OR INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION Most important of all, perhaps, is the need for co-ordination in the work of the different colleges and for some central institution which can play a leading part in the study of modern methods, in experiment and research. Many of the essential features of such an organization are embodied in the structure of the National Teacher Training Council, which was set up in Ghana in 1958. This body includes the Principals of all the teacher-training colleges in Ghana, the Director of the Institute of Education and a representative from the University of Ghana, four members of the teaching profession, representatives of the employers up to seven and representatives of the Ministry of Education (who are non-voting members). It meets in the offices of the Institute of Education (in the University of Ghana) and is responsible to the Minister of Education for (a)

the selection of students for teacher-training

(b)

the courses of study to be pursued

(c)

the examinations and recommendations for the award of certificates

(d)

the in-service training of qualified teachers

(e)

programmes of research

The Council and contact

with

its

individual

in education.

Professional training

Committee maintain

a close

through

regional

colleges

five

conferences of training college principals who discuss syllabuses and

proposed

legislation

and recommend students

for

the award of

AFRICAN EDUCATION

158 certificates

through the Professional Committee (see Annual Report,

igj8-6o, page 41). 3 An external evaluation of practical teaching is obtained by using representatives of other regions and of the Ministry to assess with local examiners, representative samples of students. Certificates of the Council are then

awarded on the basis of the marks

obtained in external and internal examinations and on practical teaching.

In general terms, the principal responsibilities of a national organization of this kind would be to organize the selection of candidates for admission to the colleges, define the syllabuses to be followed,

carry out the final examination of the students and award the certificates.

It

would

also

be responsible in co-operation with the

Ministry, for stimulating research and investigation into the cur-

riculum and methods of teaching (see for example the Report of the Unesco Mission to Tanganyika, p. 65). x A number of these functions are already discharged in some countries in West Africa by the Institutes of Education which have been established in the Universities and at the Mombasa Conference (February 1964), there was a consensus of opinion in favour of the development in East Africa too of Institutes of Education rather than National Councils. An

Makerere and plans are in an Institute in Dar es Salaam in 1965. Some of the administrative machinery of such a co-ordinating body might well be worked out in the preliminary stage through the establishment of a less formal body such as the Working Committee set up in Salisbury to plan the development of a National Council for Teacher Education the Teacher Training Advisory Board in Tanganyika; or the Advisory Council on teacher training which has been recently established in Uganda. One of the reasons for establishing this Council in Uganda was indeed to bring the training colleges into closer contact with each other and with the Institute of Education at Makerere. At the first meeting in May 1962, eleven subject panels were set up for the main branches of the primary school curriculum, each of which was invited (a) to discuss possible amendments to primary and secondary school syllabuses, (b) to advise on improved methods of teaching in those subjects and suggest suitable subjects for topics for research investigation, (c) to approve of specific textbooks, and (d) to examine and advise on the content of the Primary Training College Syllabuses. Membership of the panels varies between four and seven members and is arranged so that each college is represented on at least one of the committees, but it is not intended Institute of Education already exists at

hand

for the establishment of

;

TRAINING THE TEACHERS

159

that the panels should meet too frequently because of the cost of doing so. One member of the nature study panel for example, had to travel over three

hundred miles

to attend a meeting.

In Kenya too, training college policy has been co-ordinated by the two teacher-training organizations set up in 1956, one governing the eastern and one the western sector of the country.

These have been

responsible for the maintenance of academic standards in

and

all

of the

conduct of the annual teachers' examinations. Each organization consists of a Governing Council representative of the Education Department, the training college principals and managements whose function it is to consider policy; an Academic Board, which is a standing committee appointed by the Council to deal with academic matters a Planning Committee, which is also appointed by the Council and which is responsible for formulating advice on the development of teacher training (as in the amalgamation of training colleges into larger units); and subject panels and examination panels (appointed by the Academic Board). In Malawi, too, substantial changes in the character of the training offered in the teachers' colleges have resulted from the consultations between Principals. Following recommendations made in i960 by the Conference of Principals, examinations have now been reorganized and are divided at all three levels of training into (a) a professional studies group, (b) an English group, (c) a special studies group. The first group is divided into principles of education, school organization, practical techniques and three curriculum courses with weighting in the final results for internal assessments and examination results. 'Methods' is no longer examined by means of a separate paper. Even so, the Committee of Inquiry clearly foresaw the need for a much closer association between the colleges than was provided by a meeting of principals and recommended the establishment of a comprehensive organization based, if possible, on a central institution. 'We have mentioned elsewhere the need for such an association which should be based on a central institution responsible for the coordination of all training and the maintenance of professional standdards at a uniform level. It should also be able to inspire and guide research work, especially in the preparation of syllabuses, the contents of examinations and the teaching of language. We hope that the new government centre at Blantyre will go far to meet this need' training colleges in their areas

for the

;

(p. 7 8).«

Such proposals represent

a

tremendous change

the training of teachers, and also in the

in attitude

means by which

towards it

is

felt

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l6o

schemes of training can be best administered. They involve a transfer of authority for such important functions as the certification of teachers from the Administration to a Council consisting largely of representatives of the profession; they also involve a delegation of

which some might feel to be a limitaaffairs and they further imply the assumption of responsibility by the Council on behalf of all the colleges in the area though some rationalization of the numbers of by the

responsibilities

colleges

tion of their control over their

own

;

may be necessary before the Council be able to assume effective control. It can hardly be assumed, then, that a National Council, or any other similarly constituted body, can step straight into its functions for, whatever responsibilities may have been formally delegated to it, there will be many issues on which it must expect to have to win the confidence of the colleges, of the voluntary agencies and perhaps of the Administration too before it will be in a position to implement teacher-training institutions will

new

policy.

the new relationships which these proposals imply between the colleges and the Institute of Education, for example, or between the Council and the Administration, can be established only on a basis of confidence which in some cases may need to be developed through experience and over a period of time.

Indeed,

THE REORGANIZATION OF TRAINING Many colleges have to work under conditions which

force

them

ways that may seem to be narrow and unimaginative. These pressures are felt more one of the principal reasons why the acutely in the smaller colleges

to interpret the period of professional training in

—

size of the college inevitably influences the character of the training

wide range of subjects effectively, be. Indeed much of the value of specialist teachers (when these are available) may be lost in the small college because of the need for them to work outside their own particular field and it is not possible for the small college to employ sufficient staff to provide a tutorial system which secures individual

for a small staff cannot cover a

however well

qualified they

may

;

supervision of each student's work.

An

additional difficulty,

which some

the lack of that

more

generous scale of

and enterprising students require. shelves

may be

colleges have encountered in

among

the students, has been accommodation which active Restricted space and partially filled

trying to develop responsive attitudes

a positive

discouragement to the use of the library

TRAINING THE TEACHERS just as small

workshops and

students wishing to

The main

make

insufficient tools

their

own

l6l

can be a disincentive to

apparatus.

however, is that the training which some colleges offer is largely out of touch with the needs of the students in a modern society and with a modern view of the aims of the schools as well. The educational programmes which every country envisages today cannot be carried out unless the teacher assumes a much wider and more responsible role than in the past and for this he needs preparation. In Ghana, according to a recent report, 'the importance of the teacher as a leader of society has never been more fully recognized than in the last decade when the progressive development of the educational system upon sound lines has been continuously depencriticism,

dent upon the emergence of a well-qualified and socially responsible body of professional men and women' {Report for ig^8-6o, p. 39). Such an approach to teaching calls for education rather than training in the narrower sense an aim which can be achieved only if the student is well versed in the general principles on which his work in the schools is based. This implies some knowledge of the way children grow up and of the general nature of the child's psychological development and particularly of the way children's growth and character are affected by the environment. It calls for an extension of the student's own education preferably in an environment which offers scope for developing a sense of responsibility and maturity of purpose. The period of professional preparation should probably include some reference also to the wider aims of the community; a study of community development could be a valuable addition to training courses and particularly for teachers in rural areas at a time when village life is being regenerated (e.g. in Western Nigeria) through the

—

activity of the village level worker.

Some colleges will certainly be unable to respond to this broader concept of training unless they are able to make substantial changes which their students live and work. example have been adapted from buildintended for other purposes, and are quite unsuited

in the material conditions in

Many

college buildings for

ings originally

to the needs of students

who

are expected to develop as responsible

persons.

Some

need to have a greater degree of control over their members of staff have been recruited as members of the mission staff and are of course subject to mission control and direction, buildings and property are vested in mission ownership and the colleges are run as an integral part of the mission's colleges too

activities.

In a number,

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l62

general activities. In such colleges*

more

clearly the extent to

it

may be necessary to define much

which the

college's

work

is

professional

rather than denominational for every college needs sufficient freedom to develop its professional activities in a professional way.

A

LONGER COURSE OF TRAINING

must be asked whether the majority of students are themenough to be able to absorb this broader but much more demanding kind of professional preparation.

Finally,

it

selves old

'We have

already pointed out the danger of students entering the

college at too

young an age and

assume the full end of their training', said the Nyasaland and it suggested as a partial their inability to

responsibility of a teaching post at the

Committee of Inquiry in remedy the lengthening of the present two-year course to three. Elsewhere, the Committee pointed out that colleges are now demanding a pre-training year in which the students gain experience by working for a year

as uncertified pupil teachers as a

stitute for the three-year course for

the view of the Committee

why

the

temporary sub-

T4 students, a further reason T4 course should be extended

in

to

three years as soon as funds are available (p. 162). In Western Nigeria, likewise, the Banjo Commission strongly

urged the establishment of a three-year course for all teachers and the Dike Commission recommended the development of three-year Higher Schools for teachers in the Eastern Region. Indeed, training programmes in some countries have long been moving in this direction; in Sierra Leone, all courses are of three years' duration, in Uganda four year courses have been organized in which the first year is devoted to strengthening the students' academic knowledge in Ghana, all teachers now take a four year course and in Zambia, the course for teachers in secondary schools is already a three-year course. These lengthened courses will obviously have more fruitful results if they can be associated with a higher standard of entry and in some countries, appreciable progress is being made towards this objective too. In Uganda, the minimum standard of entry for the four-year course is now Junior Secondary II (two years of secondary schooling following six years in the primary school) and in Zambia, it is now possible to demand a substantially higher level of attainment than two years in the secondary school for the course for upper primary teachers. This is the ultimate objective in other countries too though :

*

cf.

Report on the Review of the Educational System in Eastern Nigeria, chapter Position of the Voluntary Agencies'.

VI on 'The

TRAINING THE TEACHERS

163

may make such changes impracticable at The ultimate aim in Ghana is 'to eliminate untrained teachers from the profession entirely and gradually to increase the number of lack of suitable candidates

present.

available for post-secondary teacher-training until finally School Certificate becomes the basic requirement for admission to training college' [Education Report, jq5#-6o). 3

places

In each of these countries, it seems that the need conceded for a period of training lasting three years at Eastern Nigeria for example, training for the Grade

C

is

already

In

least.

qualification

to end in 1964 and courses for the Grade B Certificate are to be expanded to four years, and in Northern Nigeria, Government proposes to introduce a five-year Grade II course at selected colleges with entry from Primary VII. # The advantages to be expected from is

such a lengthening of the period of training will be, of course, the knowledge which students can be expected to achieve and the more liberal and responsible attitudes which they can be expected to show when they begin their teaching career. For these reasons, the introduction of training courses lasting three or four years seems to be a significant and necessary step towards the general improvement of standards in the teaching profession and one which will surely enhance its status in society. substantially higher level of academic

TRAINING TEACHERS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS In many countries, the expansion of the secondary school

is felt

to

the most urgent need in the whole field of education today, and

be

it is

has been acute. secondary school teachers are graduates (about two-fifths of teachers in secondary schools in Commonwealth countries) and of

at this level that the scarcity of teachers

Many all

about two-thirds have received a one-year's course of proDepartment of Education or an Institute of Education. These courses last one academic year and normally include lectures on the principles of education, educational psychology, the social determinants of education and methods of these,

fessional training either in a university

teaching the subjects of the curriculum. Students are required to

spend

a prescribed period of teaching in schools during the training

year (usually about twelve full weeks) and must pass a written

examination

at the

end of the

—the Post-graduate

year.

The award

of the professional

Diploma

in Education based on the candidate's performance in the written and practical examination and on his work during the year. certificate

Certificate or

is

* See White Paper on Education Development in Northern Nigeria

(Kaduna, 1961).

AFRICAN EDUCATION

164

Though

African universities are already producing substantial

numbers of graduates, the majority of these professions, with the result that

drawn off and to the

are at present

into the civil service, to other forms of administration

programmes of expansion

in secon-

dary schools are still largely dependent on the services of expatriate staff. It is unfortunate for the schools that many expatriates, owing to the conditions of their appointments,

may

not spend more than

three or four years in one post,* and that about one-third of

all

graduate teachers have had no professional training.

One way

of mitigating this problem has been to

employ non-

graduate teachers to teach the lower forms in the secondary schools

and a glance at the following table will show that most countries now depend very heavily on this means of supplementing their fully qualified staff. Thus, more than half the teachers employed in secondary

TABLE v Graduates {trained and untrained) and Non-graduates Government and aided Secondary Schools

Country and year

Trained

in

Untrained

Non-graduates

Basutoland (1962)

52

7

30

Bechuanaland (1961)

18

4

Gambia (1963) Ghana (1962) Kenya (1962)

18

3

19 109

342

277

466

183

57

132

Nigeria (1962)

Northern

270 414

Eastern

129

187

609 486

1452

Western Lagos Zambia (1962) Malawi (1962) Sierra Leone (1963)

5*9 172 146 66

Rhodesia (1963) Swaziland (1962) Tanganyika (1962)

N.A. 21

22

302

33 1

Uganda

135

37

(1961) t

169

136

39

6784 508

12

59 50

90 N.A.

N.A.

253 58 156

75t

Excludes teachers in Junior Secondary Schools.

* Indeed, teachers appointed under the Teachers for East Africa scheme are normally given a two-year contract; see Times Ed. Supp. article 'Joint AngloAmerican T.E.A.' (in issue 14 February 1964).

TRAINING THE TEACHERS schools in

Ghana and Western

165

Nigeria, 58 per cent, of the teachers

and 35 per cent, of those in Kenya fall into this some countries special courses of training are now being developed which will give these teachers the academic and in Eastern Nigeria

and

category,

in

preparation they require for teaching in the lower forms of secondary schools. In Tanganyika, Changombe College offers (from 1964) a two-year course for pupils, who have passed School Certificate, leading to a qualification as Education Officer III; in Northern Nigeria similarly, a three-year post- School Certificate course was begun in 1962 to provide training and education in two or professional

three subjects

up

to

A level.

no more than a palliative, however, and the ultimate solution must be found through an increase in the number of trained African graduates. It has also been doubted whether the present form This

is

of preparation for teachers in secondary schools

and

is

not unnecessarily

any case, too lengthy in view of the pressing need for more teachers now. According to Investment in Education, specialized

There

in

not time enough to require for

is

all,

the present three-year course

for the bachelor's degree plus a full year of professional preparation for

Nor

the usual university programme, with

its high specialisasecondary school. We propose that a new, three-year degree be established, the Bachelor of Arts (Education). The first year might require four subjects and the second and third years three subjects, each of which would be appropriate for the curriculum of the secondary school. Professional preparation for teaching to be taken in the second and third year, might include the history of education, reading in philosophy and the psychology of learning. Practice in the schools, to which discussion of teaching methods should be linked, could take place in the long vacations after the second year. For this purpose it is fortunate that Nigeria practises a variety of academic schedules and secondary schools are in session during the long holidays of the universities (p. 89). 7

teaching.

is

tion, appropriate for the teacher of the

The comment

Commission on these proposals was unsound and made excessive demands

of the Banjo

that they were educationally

on the students

We, of

Commission, are agreed that the idea be deprecated if it cheap degree course to attract all sorts and conditions of people into teaching. To mix academic work with a professional course at that level would be a break with informed educational tradition. Did the Ford Foundation not give money that people might get away from this queer admixture? But if the course can follow the pattern of the B.Ed, degree of McGill University where the curriculum this

entails the invention of a

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l66

and was cerand where Methodology and Practical Teaching were not accepted as academic subjects and therefore had to be done in extra time, thereby making the B.Ed, course eight weeks longer each year for four years, the idea might be worth considering. But practical teaching per se is strenuous. If it comes immediately after the University academic year, undergraduates might crumble under the strain. If teaching becomes attractive graduates will wait for an extra year to do

was said

to be heavier for a B.Ed, degree than for a B.A.,

tainly not considered inferior to the latter,

the Post-Graduate Course, which, in our opinion,

thing

is

the proper regular

(p. 54).

Degree courses which include an element of teacher-training have initiated at Makerere and Ahmadu Bello and are proposed for the University of Lagos and in Tanganyika students enrolling in the University College of Dar es Salaam will also be able to offer Education as one of the three subjects required for a degree (either B.A. or B.Sc). Only experience, it would seem, can show whether this combination of academic work with training will provide the degree of professional preparation which the secondary schools require but experiment of any kind which will enable teachers to be trained more quickly is to be welcomed.*

now been

TEACHER-TRAINING IN PERSPECTIVE It is

evident that the expansion of teacher-training has proceeded

much faster

in some countries than others and notably in those where independence has come earlier. Even in those countries where the greatest effort has been made, however, it is clear that many, many more teachers are required; estimates prepared for the Conference of African States at Addis Ababa show that more than three times as many teachers will be required in primary schools in 1980 as were available in 1963 and five times as many in secondary schools (chapter

IV, table

I). 8

Moreover, following the experience of Ghana and Nigeria, there can be no doubt that every new entrant to the profession should be adequately trained and a significant improvement in the standards and status of teaching is to be expected in those countries where all teachers

now

train for three years.

Many

training colleges are too

which has to be must be assumed that colleges will normally need to have at least two hundred students on roll if they are to offer them the facilities of specialist training and the wider range of social experience small, however, to provide the kind of training

envisaged for

it

* See also chapter

V

(pp. 127-128).

TRAINING THE TEACHERS which in a

is

a necessary part of their training.

number

of countries has

smaller colleges

if

shown

On

167

this issue, experience

the advantage of amalgamating

individual colleges cannot be built

up

to this size.

need has become evident for a much greater degree of co-operation between colleges than exists in some Commonwealth countries at present. In some countries, a National Council for Teacher Education or an Advisory Committee which includes representatives of all those with a professional interest in teacher training at present serves as a co-ordinating authority though it seems Finally, the

probable that

many

of these functions of co-ordination will eventually

be taken over by the Institutes of Education. All these developments raise issues for which a solution must be found now or in the near future for educational programmes in every country depend on the supply of teachers and, as has been learned a country's ability to attract and hold recruits who have a sense of vocation, will depend very much on the undertakings it can give for the future. Of these, the principal are that higher standards should beset throughout the profession and that the teacher should be accorded an unequivocal status in society.

from experience,

REFERENCES 1.

Unesco. Report of Unesco Educational Planning Mission for Tanganyika

2.

Government of Western

(Paris 1963).

Nigeria. Report of the Mission appointed to System of Western Nigeria (Ibadan, 1961). Ministry of Education Ghana. Education Report, 1958-60 (Accra, 1962). Ministry of Education Nyasaland. Committee of Inquiry into African Education (Zomba, 1962). Government of Northern Rhodesia. Northern Rhodesian Draft Development Plan for Period ig6i-ig6$ (Lusaka, 1962). Education Department Eastern Nigeria. Annual Report of the Education Department for 19 $j (Enugu, 1958). Federal Ministry of Nigeria. Investment in Education (Lagos, i960). Unesco. Final Report: Conference of African States on the Development

Review

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

the Educational

of Education in Africa (Paris, 1961). I (p. 159) These two organizations were amalgamated in 1964 and called the Kenya Institute of Education (see Education Commission Report,

Part

I,

paras 459-464).

7 Control and Direction In many Commonwealth countries in Africa significant changes have taken place in recent years both in the pattern of educational administration and the degree of control which is exercised from the centre. A number of these, such as the development of local authorities or the establishment of an inspectorate, may have been initiated in the years preceding independence but all have been greatly stimulated by the needs which independence has made evident. In most countries, these changes involve a reorganization of administrative duties at the centre, the creation of an inspectorate independent of the departments responsible for administering the schools and the delegation of considerable powers to local authorities, particularly in the field of primary education. It is with such general changes in the control and direction of education that this chapter is concerned.

THE PATTERN OF ADMINISTRATION Education in all Commonwealth countries

except the Protectorates

Government and there between many of them in the pattern of administration, though considerable differences may exist between one country and another in the extent to which particular procedures have been developed.

is

is

the responsibility of one of the Ministers of a

marked

similarity

Until recently, for example,

this

has not differed greatly in

countries in East and Central Africa from that which had been

developed in the years preceding independence. In Kenya, the Director of Education combined the duties of the Director with those of Permanent Secretary (1961) and advised the Minister on the As permanent Secretary and Director of

formulation of policy.

Education, he could consult the Central Advisory Committee for African Education of which he (or the Minister) was usually the chair-

man and

he worked from headquarters through Provincial Education and District Education

Officers (one to each province or region)

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

169

Officers (often more than one in a District). A major change has been made, however, in the allocation of responsibilities among the assistant Directors to conform with the policy of integration. These officers, who were previously responsible respectively for education for Europeans, Asians and Africans, have become responsible (since i960) for (a) primary education and district administration, (b) secondary education and teacher training, (c) Asian and Arab education, and (d) technical education and apprenticeship training. 1 At the regional or provincial level, responsibility rests with the Provincial Education Officer (P.E.O.) who normally has a headquarters staff of an education officer, an office assistant, a woman education officer (to supervise girls' work) and often a domestic

He is expected to work closely with his opposite numbers from other departments, such as the provincial medical officer or the provincial agricultural officer, and in Kenya his responsi-

science specialist too.

bilities

have, until recently, been limited to secondary education,

teacher training and

and the

local

education in intermediate schools. He may Education Board on which school managers

girls'

also consult a Regional

community

are represented.

Responsibility for primary education

is

usually exercised at the

by the District Education Officer, who may be assisted by one or more Education Officers and assistant education officers. At district level

this level, too, a

channel exists for the expression of public opinion

the District Education Board

Director on

all

The members

—which

is

responsible for advising the

matters affecting primary education in the

district.

of this board usually include school managers, repre-

sentatives of the local authority

and of the

local

government authority

(which might be the African District Council). In Zambia, the Provincial Education Officer has a more comprehensive responsibility for he is responsible for the general supervision and control of education in his province and for the inspection of schools (1961) and is chairman of the provincial education authority. Accordingly his duties include (a) ensuring that the schools are inspected by officers of the Ministry, (b) seeing that instruction does not contravene the prescribed syllabuses and that it follows the general pattern laid down,

(c)

ensuring that records and registers are kept as

prescribed by the Ministry, (d) ensuring that

by the Local Education Authority, permission to build

new

(e)

all

schools are registered

adjudicating on requests for

schools, (/) ensuring that school

managers

are approved, (g) licensing all teachers in charge of schools, and (h) ensuring that pupils are admitted irrespective of religious belief and

AFRICAN EDUCATION

170 that

no child

is

compelled to receive religious instruction

if

his parents

object. 2

In Malawi, as in Kenya, Zambia and Tanganyika, education the responsibility of a Minister the Minister of Education, Social Development and Information. He is assisted by a Per-

—

is

manent Secretary (formerly the

who

is

Schools taught. regions)

Director), a Chief Education Officer

responsible for administration and a Chief Inspector of

who is responsible for the character and content of what is The Ministry's representative in the provinces (now styled is

the Provincial Education Officer and in each of these

as in other countries, a District Education Officer

is

responsible for

Northern Province, seven in Central and ten in Southern Province plus one urban area). In 1961, secondary schools were under the direct control of Head Office but it is to be expected that responsibility for these will be transferred to the Provincial Education Officers (if the recommendations of the Phillips Committee for the expansion of secondary education are accepted). District Education Officers are responsible for the administration of primary education in each district, and for the most part they have been selected from members of the teaching service. The duties of the D.E.O. are (a) to be the agent of the Ministry in the district, (b) to be Secretary and Executive Officer of the Education Committee of the Local Education Authority which is the District Council, (c) to advise the Education Authority through its committee on primary education, and (d) to draw up the Development Plan for primary education in his district in accordance with the wishes of the Committee which he advises. In the countries of West Africa, though the pattern of educational administration is similar, the total picture may seem to be different owing to the progressive devolution of responsibility and more extensive changes in the allocation of duties. Thus, in Western Nigeria, as the offices of Director and Assistant Director have been integrated in the Ministry, the responsibilities formerly discharged by the Director have been taken over by the head of the Education Administration Division and those of the assistant directors (in Western Nigeria, five in 1955) have been transferred to departments either in the Education Administration Division (primary schools, teacher-training and secondary schools) or to a separate branch (like the Technical Branch) The role of the P.E.O. has changed significantly and appropriately in accordance with the new title he has been given, first as Senior Education Officer and then as Local Education Advisor. The each

district (four in the

CONTROL AND DIRECTION responsibilities of those senior education officers

171

who were

at

one

time advisers on rural science, P.E., examinations and publications have now been transferred to appropriate departments either in the

Education Administration Division or in the appropriate Inspectorate Division (see Table II). 3 Many of these changes have become necessary to meet the greatly increased pressure from public opinion, which now demands not only a hearing for its views but a share in the decisions. Indeed, the extent to which advisory groups representing professional and public opinion at national and regional levels now set the pace and character of educational programmes which were once set by the heads of service the Director and his Deputy is perhaps the truest measure of the change which has taken place in the character of educational adminis-

—

—

tration.

Some

impression of the increasing complexity of educational

may be gained from a comparison of Tables I and II, which show the pattern of administration in Kenya (1 960-1) and Western Nigeria (1959). Such differences as emerge between these patterns of administration are, in general, differences of size and complexity rather than of administration

principle. It

is

characteristic, for example, that education

administered through local

offices of the

should be

Ministry working through

education authorities, that the central government should

local

its grants through local authorities and voluntary agencies and that committees should have been set up at various levels district, regional and national to ensure that the views of the public do not go unheard. All this is in accord with the 'broad principle which should form the basis of a sound educational policy that governments control policy but will co-operate with other educational

channel

—

.

.

.

agencies'.

In

and

all,

administration

local authorities

amount of executive a large

is

work

based on the assumption that the central in a partnership in

responsibility

is

which a considerable

vested in the local authority. In

and expanding system of education,

for example,

much

of the

routine administration of primary schools should be (and often

handled through

local

delegation of authority

year very large

sums

committees and a typical example of is,

of course, the practise of transferring each

as grants in aid to the local authorities.

for the distribution of these grants

both to

local

The

local

government funds, authority and volun-

authorities are responsible, as recipients of central

tary agency schools.

is)

this

1

AFRICAN EDUCATION

72

TABLE

I

The Administration of Education (Kenya, 1960-1)

The Minister-

ADVISORY COUNCIL

Permanent Secretary (Director of Education) Deputy Director I

.1

I

I

Assistant Director (Asian & Arab educ.)

Assistant Director (tec. & trade schools)

Assistant

Director (primary ed. & district admin.)

Assistant Director (seedy, ed.

&

t.-training I

P.E.O.

Provincial

I

1^.

P.E.O.

P.E.O.

Education

Regional Education

Board

Officer

woman

E.O., Domestic science supervisor) (E.O.,

Responsibilities

secondary education teacher training girls' education/intermediate schools

District Education

D.E.O.

D.E.O.

D.E.O.

D.E.O.

Officer

(Assistant E.O.

1

or 2)

District Education

Board or

District

Council or L.E.A.

Responsibilities f 1

primary education intermediate schools

Note: (a) In December i960, the administrative sections of the Ministry of Education were re-organized as far as possible to enable one Assistant Director to concentrate on primary education and district administration, and a second on secondary education and teacher training. A third Assistant Director was still responsible for all fields of Asian and Arab education and a fourth was responsible for the administration of technical and trade schools and for advising on technical education as it

affected the organization of the general education system. (b) There were thirty-four Districts which coincided with administrative or local government boundaries. (c) The inspectorate (not shown here) was almost wholly concerned with secondary schools and training colleges. (d) D.E.O.s and their assistants were mainly responsible for the supervision and inspection of primary and intermediate schools. .

CONTROL AND DIRECTION TABLE

173

II

The Administration of Education {Western Nigeria, 1958-g)

The Minister I

Permanent Secretary I

I

Finance and

Educational Administration Division

Technical

Inspectorate Division

2stablishment

Branch

(Permanent Secretary)

1

I

Primary and

Secondary

Students

&

Field

Institutional

admin.

Special Services

teacher training

staffs

&

(Principals

(examns,

staff of govt.

publications,

inst.)

scholarships broadcasting)

1

[

Higher exec,

officer

l

I

6.

5.

Local education advisor

7.

8.

(one for each province)

and

executive officer

I

I

I

Primary

&

t.-training

Secondary & commercial

Science

women's

&

subjects

(and P.E.)

Assist.

Field

Inspector (music)

staff

Tec.

Trade

Handicraft

institutes

centres

centres

The extent to which local authorities in a number of now act as channels for the allocation of expenditure on the central government

is

shown

in

Table

many

must be assumed by the central one, and this is a process

is

it

of the responsibilities at one time discharged

administration will be taken over by a local

which

behalf of

III.

Again, in such a system of gradual devolution, that

countries

going on at every level in the administration. Thus,

natural that the educational

work of the

'it is

district officer or district

commissioner should gradually pass to the local education authority and similarly, that the functions of the P.E.O. should be divided gradually between the staff of the Local Authority and the inspectorial

AFRICAN EDUCATION

i74 staff of

the central or regional government. Meantime, he should be

increasingly regarded as representing the local authority' [Report of the

West Africa Study Group,

p. 42).

TABLE

4

III

Table showing Recurrent Expenditure on Education in Selected Countries

Expenditure by Ministry or Department of Education (£)

Grant Country and year

Direct

Agencies

18,000

251,442 2,170,000

11,100

1,738,000

669,000

829,000

2,199,000

I 5.57 I 124,000 86,000

281,320

879,170 647,000

29,183 120,000

240,785 60,000

23,000

57,000 263,000

2,123,100

Swaziland (1962) (1961)

Authorities

by

79>5 00

(1962)

Uganda

Voluntary

i35>2i8

280,555

Tanganyika (1962)

L.A.s

by Local

—

360,000

Zambia (1962) Malawi (1962) Sierra Leone (1963)

to

— — —

Basutoland (1962)

Bechuanaland

Gambia (1962) Kenya (1961)

Expenditure Expenditure

249,000 4>47 I >5 00 3,285,000

— —

1,462,000

—

1,070,500

802,000

—

Note:

The table shows the amount spent by Ministries of Education directly and as a grant to local authorities. In countries where local authorities have been developed substantial grants may be earned by the local authority on account of primary education (and occasionally other forms of education) although the Ministry spends large sums directly on schools for which it has retained responsibility. The expenditure which local authorities and voluntary agencies cover from their own resources is shown in columns 3 and 4.

THE INSPECTORATE The emergence of an

inspectorate as a separate division of the

Ministry of Education is, in many Commonwealth countries, a recent development. An inspectorate was first established in Kenya in 1955

and in Western Nigeria in 1956; in Uganda the first steps were taken towards the establishment of an inspectorate independent of administrative functions in 1959 and in the same year an inspectorate

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

175

was established in Eastern Nigeria. In Malawi likewise, a Chief Inspector was appointed in 1959 and, in Zambia, a separate inspectorate branch of the Ministry of Education was established in in Ghana, the establishment of an inspectorate seems imminent 1 96 1 division

;

(1963)-

In

all,

inspections have hitherto been carried out

by Department of Education detached from other duties. 'Education assisted

colleagues

by

officers of the

who were temporarily

Officers other than those

posted to schools', says the Triennial Survey of African Education (Northern Rhodesia, 1958-60), 'have to combine administrative and inspecting duties and sometimes managerial responsibilities as well.

In their work of inspection of schools,

officers of the

Ministry are

sometimes assisted by the education councillors of native authorities and by touring administrative officers who have the right of entry to Other headquarters officers take their share in the all schools. work of inspection, each within his own sphere of interest and responsibility.' In all, the rapid growth of the education service and .

its

.

.

increasing complexity has

now made

it

imperative to establish a

separate department of the administration, which should be responsible

and colleges. seems unlikely, however, that an inspectorate will be able to function with maximum efficiency unless it is independent in its authority, and to achieve this it needs to be a self-contained unit or division of the Ministry; it is usual for example, for the Chief Inspector to be responsible directly to the Permanent Secretary like the heads of other divisions in the Ministry. Nor does it seem likely that an inspectorate can discharge its responsibilities as freely as it should if it has other administrative responsibilities, though such responsibilities are so delegated in some countries; in Kenya, for example, the inspectorate is responsible for the setting and moderating of question papers for all examinations organized by the Ministry and also for the issuing of results. 5 It is important too that there shall be sufficient appointments to the inspectorate to enable it to discharge its regular functions and also, as the Dike Report puts it, to 'sit back and take stock'. 'We have suggested that the rapid expansion of primary, secondary and teacher-training institutions in the last ten years has not been matched by a corresponding increase in the number and quality of senior staff. The result of this has been that the work of the Inspectorate Division of the Ministry has been seriously retarded and cases are known of secondary schools which have not been inspected for

for the inspection of schools It

AFRICAN EDUCATION

176

upwards of ten

years' {Report on the

Review of the Educational System

of Eastern Nigeria, p. 37). In most countries, the Chief Inspector

is

directly responsible for

the inspection of secondary schools and teacher-training colleges (the inspection of primary schools being the responsibility of the District

Education Officer) and is usually assisted by a staff with specialist qualifications who can advise on such matters as (a) the teaching of the principal subjects of the secondary school curriculum, (b) the training of teachers (since the inspectorate

inspection of training colleges),

(c)

is

responsible for the

the teaching of language (with

special reference to the teaching of English),

and

(d)

methods

in the

primary school. Hitherto, a Chief Inspector has often had to appoint a panel of inspectors from officers engaged in other duties to carry out an inspection of a secondary school. Indeed, there were few countries where, until recently, the administration was able to mount a full inspection of well-established secondary schools without considerable initiative and a quite special effort. In the Eastern Region of Nigeria for example, 'the inspection of the older and larger schools was

resumed after a lapse of several years. A team of five inspectors drawn from the Federal and Eastern Ministries of Education and the Department of Education of the Nigerian College of Technology was organized to conduct a pilot inspection of one selected school, with a view to its being used as a standard of comparison for other schools under the same proprietorship. When the team issued its report, it was agreed to use it as a guide for all .

.

.

other secondary schools of the Anglican Mission in preparation for their

own

inspection at a later date' (Eastern Region

Annual Report,

1959)-*

The appointment of sufficient staff to provide the substance of such panels is an important requirement in every inspectorate. In many countries too, it may become necessary to give special encouragement to the education of girls at the primary level a field which can hardly be covered adequately by one inspector at head-

—

quarters

—and

this will involve the provision of additional staff; in

Malawi, the Phillips Committee 7 recommended, for example, that women education officers attached to provincial offices should be absorbed into the inspectorate and that if, for some reason, it were not possible to station a homecraft inspector in any province, then the junior method inspector should be a woman. There are, however, few countries at present which can staff their inspectorate as they

would

like,

for each

appointment to the inspectorate deprives the

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

1

77

schools of an experienced teacher and the scarcity of trained teachers

everywhere acute.

is

THE INSPECTION OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS In most countries, responsibility for the inspection of primary schools seems, remain with the officers at district level. In Ghana, the officer in charge of the District Education Office carries out the administration and inspection of primary and middle schools in the District and is aided by a number of Assistant Education Officers, to

will, it

each of

whom

is

assigned the duty of supervising a

maximum

of

primary schools Assistant untrained teachers). 'The Education staffed by wholly Officer visits each school for a period of several days each term, gives twelve to fifteen non-priority primary schools

professional advice to the

staff, assists

(e.g.

them in the preparation of notes

and equipment and gives demonstration lessons' {Education Report, T9 58-60)* In Malawi, it has already been proposed that these officers should become local inspectors employed by and responsible to the local education authorities and that the primary school inspectorate should be expanded in the future by the appointment of inspectors employed by the local education authorities {Committee of Enquiry, p. 7 204). In Kenya, the day to day supervision and inspection of primary and intermediate schools is already the responsibility of the D.E.O.s and their assistants and in Tanganyika, the Unesco Mission has recommended that 'the professional surveillance of the primary schools should be exercised on a decentralized pattern but through the agency of central government officers the chain of responsibility [being] Assistant Chief Education Officer (primary), Regional Education Officer, District Education Officer and Supervisor. In our opinion, ]

.

all

.

.

these persons should be officers of the Ministry of Education

responsible to no other persons but making their reports and observations available to the appropriate interested parties' (chapter XI). 9

In Uganda, area Assistant Education Officers have now beeen appointed (1963) to replace the primary school supervisors appointed by the agencies. 'We have been told the story (said the Minister of Education when speaking on this decision to the National Assembly in June, 1963) about the Catholic Supervisor

who

drives past the

Church of Uganda Supervisor and is then followed by a Moslem Supervisor, all of whom are on their way down the same road to visit different schools in the same neighbourhood to pay teachers' salaries.'

The

quality of inspection at the primary level accordingly depends

AFRICAN EDUCATION

178

on the number of

local inspectors and, of course,

on the kind of the

supervision which they (or others acting in their place) can exercise.

In some countries where educational programmes have been expanded most rapidly, difficulty has been experienced on both accounts; in Western Nigeria, for example, there were in 1959, six thousand five hundred and eighteen primary schools, five hundred and eighty-eight secondary schools and ninety-seven training colleges, but only one hundred and nineteen assistant inspectors (grouped under a number of inspectors) available for their supervision. Here a substantial increase in the number of inspectors was evidently needed if inspection were to be anything more than nominal. It might be assumed that the staffs of district inspectors maintained by the voluntary agencies would be able to help teachers in the

agency schools. 'But supervision of schools [says the Banjo Commission] is, by and large, what the supervisors do not do. They are so overwhelmed with administrative duties that in a number of cases, three-quarters of their schools are

left

unvisited'

(p.

More

56).

problem of securing effective inspection of primary schools has been considerably eased by the Minister's recently, however, the

decision to absorb into the Inspectorate those supervisors fully qualified for the

work of inspection and

to

who

are

suspend the super-

visory duties of the remainder.

In others, such as the Eastern Region of Nigeria, the number of managed by District Councils is in general tco small to justify the use of District Councils as the unit of local administration or the appointment of professional staff which this would entail. The Dike Commission accordingly recommended that these responsibilites schools

should be discharged by the Provincial Education Officer. Similar difficulties must no doubt be anticipated in other countries where the number of staff that would be required to provide effective professional supervision of primary schools

from the

centre,

would

than could be justified on financial grounds for many years to come. In Tanganyika, 'the best that could be hoped for is that the services of one or two inspectors should be available to provide assistance to the Regional Education Officer in the exercise

probably be

far greater

of his overall control of all the primary schools within his region.

Such

persons by virtue of their specialist training and experience, could be expected as part of their duties to provide systematic short vacation courses for supervisors and teachers.' As for supervision by the voluntary agencies, the Report continues, 'We see no good reason for the continuance of supervision as opposed to management by the

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

179

It is in part a duplication of government effort and uneconomic and inefficient. We appreciate that on grounds, vested interest and sentiment, claims can be made

voluntary agencies. is

in

some

historical

respects

for maintaining voluntary agency participation in primary school

supervision. These grounds and claims however have insufficient weight to out-balance the national interest in the establishment of a single system of supervision directed by and responsible to the Ministry of Education' (Unesco Mission, p. 72). 9 While the principal responsibilities of an inspectorate must, at

be the inspection of schools and training colleges, all improvement of academic standards in the schools and some devote a good deal of time to the organization of regular refresher courses for teachers and even courses of instruction in an emergency. In Western Nigeria, for example, courses have been organized by the inspector for science in general science (at Ibadan in 1958), by the inspector for women's subjects, in needlework and domestic science, and by other members of the inspectorate in most of the other subjects taught in primary present,

inspectors are concerned with the

schools.

In most countries then the inspection of schools and training is the responsibility of a separate division of the Ministry of

colleges

—

—

Education the inspectorate which has its own specialist staff and is independent in the exercise of its functions. The inspectorate is directly responsible for the inspection of secondary schools and training colleges

and

in

some

countries (e.g. Western Nigeria) for

primary schools as well. In others, such as Kenya, inspection of primary schools is the responsibility of District Education Officers acting as representatives of the local education committees.

This broad difference in practice may seem to

reflect a

divergence

of view on the function of inspection. Inspection of a secondary

school normally comprises a detailed and comprehensive review of

every aspect of the work and to the school

by

life

specialist staff

of the institution and calls for a visit

which may

last several days.

The

moreover, a document which usually requires considerable deliberation by the governing body of the school, the head and the staff. But the kind of attention that the primary school needs is more usually guidance of a personal kind such as can be given in frequent visits and attention to one or two aspects of the work at a time and this can often be provided best by a supervising officer who is in close and continuing contact with the schools. It seem inevitable, however, that the first of these will gradually give report of the inspection

;

is,

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l8o

way to service

the second and this

which

all

is

the kind of inspection or better, advisory

Commonwealth

countries

now

envisage for the

primary school and, of course, for secondary schools

too.

LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES The main function of local education

authorities when they were formed,* was to survey the educational need of their areas, advise on the necessity of new schools and, if the need were approved, recommend the body which should provide the school. The local authority thus provided the link between the Provincial or District Education officer and the school-managers, local chiefs and headsmen

first

on most matters concerning schools but

it

acted only in an advisory

capacity.

Today, L.E.A.s in a number of countries have a statutory responsiprimary education and are directly responsible for local planning and the control of education, subject to the general policy of the Ministry and the funds available. This may include the administration of schools, the appointment of staff and the expenditure of money. The composition of these authorities varies, but is usually designed to give adequate representation to the missionary societies, the African communities, native authorities (and municipal authorities in urban areas) and other bodies who may have a vested interest in education. In Zambia, for example, the mining companies which have made considerable contributions to educational development might be so represented. In most countries (Western Nigeria is a notable exception), the responsibility of L.E.A.s has been limited to the field of primary education, principally because it has been generally felt that this was as much as they could be expected to manage in their present stage of development, but also because until recently there have been virtually no secondary schools that have a merely local significance. Even so, as may be seen from the table below (p. 184), local authorities in several countries have in fact established their own secondary schools and training colleges too (see chapter VI). The intention, is, however, bility for

to give elected authorities as

much

responsibility as possible in the

detailed application of policy (as determined

The

by the Minister).

principal reasons for this delegation of responsibility have

been: * In some areas de facto local education committees were active although no local education authority was formally brought into existence, e.g. in Abakaliki Division at

Orlu and Ikot Ekpene, Eastern Nigeria.

CONTROL AND DIRECTION (a)

151

the desire to encourage local initiative in matters which are

primarily of local concern; (b)

the need to decentralize a vast administrative machine which already responsible in

some

countries for

many hundreds

is

of

thousands of children; (c)

the need to harness local resources in

money and

materials to

the operation of primary education, so that the central ex-

chequer can concentrate on secondary education and other more expensive forms of education (e.g. teacher-training).

may be than before independence, for in some areas the scale of government intervention in primary education has seemed to make Paradoxically, the need for an informed local opinion

greater

now

local effort

Owing

to

no longer necessary.

misunderstanding or misapprehension of the Government's

com-

contribution towards the cost of primary education, most local

munities which before Universal Primary Education contributed very substantially in labour, material

and money

patronized by the locality, continue to

show

to the

upkeep of the schools from

reluctance. This varied

mild aversion to downright recalcitrance to providing service or money maintenance of their schools. While this attitude continues to plague Managers of Voluntary Agency and Mission schools, some change of heart is evidenced by the renewed willingness of some local communities to put up school buildings in permanent materials. Attachment to a church or Mission or village group usually provides the incentive. But the position of county council schools remains in this respect very difficult and only the most virile and popular councils can find the funds and co-operation to expand their buildings in permanent for the expansion, renovation or

materials. 10

In general then, the local education authority

is a committee of the with added members representing the missions or churches in the area and local teachers, which may have either advisory or statutory powers. In Western Nigeria, following the Education Law of 1956, fifty-eight local education authorities were

district council

formed

to

whom

District Councils delegated

all

their

powers

as far as

education was concerned, and in Ghana, local Council Education

Committees

(sixty-five

in

mittees in i960 and were (a)

the general

replaced District Education

all)

made

Com-

responsible for:

management

of council schools in the area in-

cluding the appointment and transfer of teachers;

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l82 (b)

the approval of to

(c)

new primary and middle

schools or extensions

them;

the administration of central government funds, mainly grants

towards teachers' salaries in schools under the council's direct management and the refund to Government of council's 5 per cent, contribution towards salaries; (d)

the collection of school-fees in the post- 1 951 middle schools

which are managed by councils. In some countries such as Uganda, the District Council has become its business through an education committee. Until recently, half the members of the committee (representing voluntary agencies, teachers and other interested parties) were nominated by the Provincial Commissioner, but many councils have now asked for a more uncompromising voice in the planning and execution of their educational programmes and with it, the power to nominate a majority of the members of the education committee. Council majorities in these committees are now usual; District Commissioners have been replaced by non-official chairmen and the position of the major school owners safeguarded by allowing them the right to nominate their own representatives (1961). In Malawi as in Uganda, a number of District Councils have been designated local education authorities and the Committee of Inquiry the L.E.A. and conducts

(1962) has recommended that this policy be continued, the local education authority carrying out its functions through the appoint-

ment felt

of Education Committees of the Council.

The Committee

also

that the executive officer of the education committee should be an

it by the Secretary for education, as in Zambia and that membership should include representatives of Council members (of whom one should be chairman) and independent members with experience in education, nominated in part by the Council and in part by the Secretary.

education officer attached to

In Tanganyika, local education authorities have been required to assume responsibility for primary education and to pay a proportion of the cost from their own revenues, though they also receive a subvention from the central government. Primary education is administered by education committees of the local authorities upon which the interests of the voluntary agencies are represented. There were in 1962, fifty-eight rural local authorities and twelve urban local authorities grouped into ten regions, all of which are assisted by District Education officers under the control of the Regional Educa-

CONTROL AND DIRECTION and all of whom serve the Ministry

tion

Officers

The

District Education

supervision of

work

Officer

who

in the schools

is

and

adequately provided with equipment,

is

also

183 of Education.

responsible for the

for ensuring that they are

assisted

by the voluntary

agency assistants and school supervisors (government and voluntary agency).

In most countries,

local authorities

have been prepared for this vast

increase of responsibility over a period of years, for they have long

been accustomed to making recommendations on the development of primary education (either through the old Native Education Committees or in their own right) which were passed through the District Education officer and Provincial Education Officer to the Department of Education. It would be surprising, however, if some difficulties did not emerge when the transition was made from an advisory to an executive role and, in particular, whether local authorities would be capable of performing these extended functions. In practice, the lapse of standards which has been noted in some areas (e.g. in Tanganyika in i960) does not seem to have been due to lack of experience in administering primary education but rather to the sweeping changes in local government as a whole. Thus, in some areas, the composition of local government bodies was altered by substituting a majority of elected but inexperienced members in place of more experienced and traditional ones and, at the same time, the District Commissioner ceased to have a direct responsibility for local government matters. Even so, it should perhaps be noted that the intention underlying this devolution of authority was not primarily to secure greater efficiency (though it will surely achieve this in the long run) but to ensure greater appreciation by local communities of their responsibilities.

Some impression of the extent to which local authorities have developed their own schools, primary and secondary (or assumed responsibility for the schools formerly administered

by government)

may be

gained from the following table, though it should be remembered that events have often outstripped the information available.

Thus, the Minister of Education for Uganda was able to announce June 1963) that 'there are no longer any Government Schools run directly by my Ministry and I would like the House to reflect on this important development which has now taken place smoothly and with no serious difficulties'.

(in

1

AFRICAN EDUCATION

84

TABLE Numbers and Status of Schools

in

IV

Commonwealth Countries

Primary Country and year Basutoland

Govt.

L.A.

4

5

Secondary

Aided

Unaided

37

180

Gambia (1963) Ghana (1962) Kenya (1962)

50 —

2,498

Nigeria (1962)

Northern

—

Eastern

11

(1962)

Western Lagos Zambia (1962) Malawi (1962) S. Leone (1963) Rhodesia

14

— —

8 1

5

9 2

5

13

1,251 1,628 i,749

—

7

473

— —

—

2,503

6

5

2

4,327

268§

1,063

254 87

4,752 4,663 98 1,089

Govt.

— —

100

956

(1962)

Bechuanaland

in Africa

—

—

L.A.

4

3

2

—

— — —

6

1

66 68

44

5

18

5

12

4

95 17

18

927 683

2,095 21

7 8

2,885

N.A.

10

1

43

3 1

§

Unaided

14

3

47 — 10 — — —

16

Aided

25 78

16 2

82

—

21

6 8

22

10*

34

—2 —

67

76t

Swaziland

20

39

129

104

5

(1962)

—

984

2,358

100

25

—

36

1

10

30

2,253

3,793

8

1

15

si

39

(1963)

Tanganyika (1962)

Uganda

(1961) * +

Number

of streams.

f

Excludes junior secondary schools.

Council/Committee Schools. § Lower primary only.

THE ROLE OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL One of the provisions of the Education Law (1954) of Western Nigeria was that a Regional Advisory Board of Education should be constituted to advise the Minister on educational matters. This Board consists of twenty-nine members drawn from the Ministry of Education, local

Union

education authorities, voluntary agencies, the Nigerian

of Teachers, private institutions and parent-teacher associa-

and of the members representing the voluntary agencies and the at least two must be women. The Board meets twice a year and the Chairman is now a non-government member. The Board has appointed a number of Standing Committees four so far (one each for teacher-training and primary, secondary grammar and secondary modern education) and these meet more frequently than the Advisory Board and present their recommendations

;

L.E.A.s

—

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

185

A number of sub-committees have make recommendations on specific topics such Common Entrance examination to secondary grammar schools.

tions direct to the Minister.

been

set

up

to

Such Boards

are evidently in a position to

discharge

special function in the advice they present to the Minister,

constitution

is

also as a

a

quite

and

their

provided for in the Education Laws or Ordinances of

most commonwealth countries. In Ghana, the same function is discharged by the National Advisory Committee on Education, in Eastern Nigeria by the Board of Education, in Uganda by the reformed Advisory Council and in other countries (cf. Tanganyika and Malawi) by similar councils whose establishment is mandatory in the Education Ordinance.

The Advisory Council provides the Minister with a valuable and way of obtaining advice on professional matters and also of sounding professional opinion. Nor are purely professional consideraeffective

tions the only ones affecting educational policy, for there are public

pressures which may, on occasion, modify the use of legal authority

and

it is

on

this

much

wider plane that the deliberations of an Ad-

visory Council are likely to be of right, the

most value

to the Minister.

composition of the advisory council

discretion, the meetings are not required to be

is

As

is

in the Minister's

open and the minutes

of the Council's meetings are not required to be published. 'The council is a part of the administrative machinery and is not a public forum, which role is reserved to the National Assembly.' 9 The Advisory Council may be of special value then to the Minister since it offers him a means of obtaining advice on professional matters from a wider and more representative body than the senior members of his

own

staff

and, in countries where there

may

still

be insufficient media

for the full airing of professional opinion, a particularly useful

for

sounding opinion on educational issues from

public

many

means

sectors of

life.

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT Changes have occurred

number

of countries in the system of complementary to those noted in the pattern of administration. In most countries, every secondary grammar school and training college now has its own board of governors with powers that are defined in the constitution of each. These Boards are usually responsible to the Minister of Education for ensuring that their institution conforms to the provisions of the Education Ordinance, and have a very wide range of responsibility,

school

management

in a

that are clearly

AFRICAN EDUCATION

l86

ranging from the right to appoint the headmaster or principal and to control the funds of the institution (in accordance with the regulations

of the Ministry) to responsibility for the upkeep of the fabric. In the case of institutions

church or mission,

which are

it is

closely associated with a particular

also usual for the governors to

be responsible

for ensuring that the regulations concerning religious instruction are

respected. In Ghana, for example, the Education Ordinance provides that 'students should not receive religious instruction

if

their parents

and permits students to be absent when such instruction is given. Under the Education Ordinance and Rules of 1 95 1, Ministry Officers were prohibited from inquiring into instruction in religious subjects when visiting or inspecting a school. This rule was modified in 1958, to the effect that, where the Educational Unit concerned approved, Ministry representatives were empowered to take an interest in the religious instruction given with special reference to the time allotted and teaching method. The alteration in the rule was necessary as the standard of teaching of Religious Knowledge had unfortunately become the lowest in the curriculum' {Education Report, ig 58-60, p. 19). Boards of governors were appointed to secondary grammar schools and training colleges in Western Nigeria in 1956, in Kenya during 1958 and 1959, in Uganda in 196 1 and in a number of other countries, the Minister has the statutory power to constitute boards of governors in respect of both government and voluntary agency schools when he judges fit to do so. Parallel with these developments in secondary schools and training colleges, it is significant that in Western Nigeria Boards of Managers have been appointed for the management of primary schools and that or guardians object,

management committees

are being developed in

Uganda

(i960) for

individual primary and junior secondary schools and for groups of

Western Nigeria, the Boards for voluntary agency schools members nominated by the local education authority (one-third of the total) while Boards for local authority schools are wholly nominated by the local authority. In other countries the school manager or supervisor remains the person responsible for the management of the primary schools in his area and in some, like Zambia, he may be helped by an Education Secretary who is responsible for co-ordinating the work of a group of school managers. Provision is also made in the Education Ordinance of some countries (e.g. Zambia) for the appointment of school councils whose function is to advise and assist the school manager in promoting the schools. In

include a proportion of

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

187

and welfare of the schools for which the council is serve on a voluntary basis and it was hoped that the Councils would provide a useful channel for the expression of local interest in education. The efficiency and usefulness of these councils have in fact varied very much from district to district; in Zambia, for example, 'In some cases, there is reluctance to attend meetings without payment, in others the councillors never get beyond the airing of grievances and the passing of resolutions calling on someone else "to do something"; and in others the work of the school council is supplemented and occasionally overshadowed by that of an active parent-teacher association.' Indeed, it seems that the successful working of such councils has depended mainly on the efficiency of their chairman or secretary or on their respect for the manager they advise. Many of the councils in Barotseland and Southern Province seem, nevertheless, to have made a valuable contribution to school efficiency and welfare. 2 efficiency, progress

responsible.

Members

THE VOLUNTARY AGENCIES The voluntary agencies have a long in every

Commonwealth country

record of educational endeavour

and, in nearly

all,

are today the

—

owners of a majority of the primary and secondary schools position which is doubly anomalous since their purpose has always been evangelical rather than educational and, with the exception of Basutoland and Malawi, more than four-fifths of the recurrent expenses of their schools are borne by Government or by Government jointly with the local authorities. A comparison of the enrolments in agency schools with the total enrolments in all others, whether government or local authority, shows at once what a significant contribution they still make to the various national systems of education (Table V). ago, the Phelps-Stokes Commission commented on the subordinate position of education to religion in the

Forty years particularly

Mission schools; 'in the eyes of the Church, the education of the Natives is a matter to be proceeded with cautiously and the school is always the handmaid of religion. The main object of their schools is "to instil a thorough knowledge of the Word of God into the minds of scholars old and young and to raise a Bible-reading people" (quoted '

by Committee of Inquiry, 1962, p. 22). 7 Yet the schools they established often provided the only framework available when governments began to vote funds for the expansion of education, and though all governments have built some schools of

AFRICAN EDUCATION

i88

TABLE

V

Enrolments in selected counties in aided Voluntary Agency Schools compared with Enrolments in Government and Local Authority Schools

Primary

Secondary

Voluntary

Country and year Basutoland (1962) Bechuanaland ( 1962)

Gambia (1963) Kenya (1962)

Agency

Voluntary

Agency

Others

142,295 1,144

Others

855

1,492

5ii

H4

273 1,502

1,481

8,653

345 877

861,161

2,460

8,119

2

4,340 2,679 32,5 66

37,

Nigeria (1962)

Northern

192,196

149,072

1,037,610

233,241

3,535 21,230

Western Lagos Zambia (1962) Malawi (1962) S. Leone (1963)

868,795 88,505 188,521

240,204

i9, l6 5

5,46o

4,559

1,075

33,553

2,821

2,055

175,117 102,112

1,691

1,685

505

594

7,9 6 5

i,79i

Rhodesia (1963) Swaziland (1962) Tanganyika (1963)

530,001

60,187 8,292

4,960 1,250

2,285

25,168 355,8x8

162,845

Uganda

362,888

7,548

Eastern

(1961)

J

3,407*

749 2,562*

2,847

1,261

* Figures for 1961.

own,

their

it

has usually been found more expeditious and

much

new

school

cheaper to allow one of the voluntary agencies to build a

and

to

many

pay the recurrent costs from government funds. Thus, in have been built by the parents in co-

areas, the village schools

operation with the mission superintendent, the parents providing the

building and the mission providing the supervision and the teachers.

Should the school be recognized for aided

status, in

most countries

the government then pays teachers' salaries and makes a grant to-

wards equipment; in return

for this support, the school will usually be required to follow departmental syllabuses and to conform to the general regulations governing such matters as attendance and

numbers of pupils per

class. Immediate control remains, however, with the superintendent or supervisor. In Zambia, for example, the system of African education has

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

189

always been based on co-operation between Government and the voluntary agencies and indeed, one of the chief purposes of the

African Education Ordinance of 1952 was to give legal effect to this partnership. Missionary educationists are represented on all advisory

committees and boards and the Minister of African Education reaffirmed (in 1959), the Government's intention of continuing to support the educational effort of the voluntary agencies provided they maintained satisfactory standards of efficiency. Government assistance to agency schools covers salaries and travel grants to education secretaries (an important provision without which many schools would remain unsupervised), the salaries of all teachers, grants to cover the cost of all types of equipment, boarding grants (covering at least 50 per cent, of the cost of maintaining boarders) and grants for special purposes such as organizing refresher courses for teachers. 2

In Kenya and Uganda similarly, 'the religious basis of education

is

retained and even today there are very few non-denominational

Uganda, the majority of the schools are managed by the voluntary agencies each of which has its own organization for the administration and supervision of the schools (i960); and in Kenya, voluntary agencies are still responsible for the mangement of secondary schools and training colleges (1963). The voluntary agencies occupy a similarly dominant position in the school systems of West Africa. In Ghana, most schools and colleges in the Western, Eastern, Ashanti, Volta and Brong-Ahafo Regions and a few in the Northern Region are managed by missions or churches which are recognized by the Ministry for the purpose and known as Educational Units. These Units, ten in all, receive grants for their primary and middle schools and also for the supervisory, administrative and clerical staff. 'The routine administration of individual primary and middle schools is conducted largely by clergymen officially termed local managers who receive no payment for such work although some of their expenses such as those incurred when travelling to pay teachers' salaries, are met by Government grant. The Educational Units are responsible for conducting made under the Ordinance' {Education Report, ig^8-6o pubd. 1962). 8 In Eastern and Western Nigeria, despite a phenomenal increase in their schools according to the Education Ordinance and the Rules schools' (i960). In

—

—

y

the

by

number

of local authority schools, secondary as well as primary,

far the greater part of the educational provision

schools belonging to the missions or churches.

is still

made

in

AFRICAN EDUCATION

190

It is, however, evident in more than one country that conditions which were once so propitious for the development of voluntary systems of education are by no means sufficient for the establishment

of a national system. In particular,

deploy the number of

some missions

find

it

difficult to

needed for the administration of the large numbers of schools for which they now find themselves responsible. staff

In Zambia a recent report (i960) stated that some missionary have relinquished all or some of their schools to local

societies

last few years; in Malawi, the Committee of Inquiry (1962) found that the rapid expansion of the educational system was placing an intolerable burden on mission staff and funds and on the slender financial resources of the local churches. Indeed, the Committee recommended that missions should be allowed to transfer the proprietorship of secondary schools and

education authorities during the

teacher training centres (which are a particularly heavy financial

burden) to autonomous Boards of Governors either on long lease or by a deed of trust (p. 123). 7 It is also apparent from the report of the planning mission to Tanganyika that apart from the freedom to give religious instruction of a particular kind, many mission schools are already, in effect, schools within the national system. The cumulative effect of the various requirements which any government prescribes as a condition for paying grant must indeed result in the gradual establishment of a minimal standard in teaching, administration and equipment such as a national system sets out to secure. Voluntary agency schools are owned and managed within the law they are registered, their teachers are registered, the agency itself has to be approved by the Minister. There is power to close them if there is noncompliance with the law. If they receive monetary aid there are further controls, and further absorption into the 'public' sector of the system; indeed, they are thus included within the meaning of 'public school'. There is evidence that the voluntary agencies do a positive good in providing moral instruction. The agencies are of value in shouldering .

.

.

some of the administrative burden of operating a large number of schools, in bearing some part of the costs of education albeit a comparatively small one. It is not unnatural that there should be some sentiment against voluntary agencies on the grounds that a national interest can only be fairly served by a service owned by the nation. In fact control by the nation

In

is all

all

that

is

required and that

is

secure (p. 28). 9

countries the tendency to assimilate agency schools to the

pattern and standards of the State system has been hastened by

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

191

the considerable changes which have taken place in administrative practice

—the devolution of control to

local authorities, the provision

boards of governors and school committees in respect of secondary and primary schools (which must

of statutory

power

eventually bring

to constitute

management

in

all

types of school into closer

alignment), the disbandment of the supervisory teams in (originally

more

formed

Kenya

in 1952 to enable the voluntary agencies to give

primary and intermediate schools) Western Nigeria, the absorption into the inspectorate of those agency supervisors who were sufficiently well qualified.

and

effective supervision to their

in

In some, however, this process has proceeded much more slowly than in others, either because of the inability of local education authorities (or District Councils) to

assume

fuller responsibilities, or

because of the apparent reluctance of Voluntary Agencies to cooperate in the proposals which have been made for securing a more uniform provision of education. In Eastern Nigeria, for example, the Dike Report has recommended that while the local Authorities retain the proprietorship of

all

their schools, the

management,

particularly

be entrusted temporarily to the Regional Government through their Provincial Education Officers. 'The aim of this temporary partnership between the Local Authorities and the Regional Government in education should be not only for the Government to hold the fort until the Local Authorities are in a position to take over but more important, to educate the Local Authorities in the process of doing so' (p. 46). The position of the voluntary agencies also needs reconsideration now that such a high proportion of the cost of running the schools is borne by the state. 'What we advocate is a unified plan for education in each part of the Region. It is not reasonable that any school proprietors (whether Voluntary Agency, District Council or private proprietor) should expect to receive from public funds so high a proportion of the cost without being willing to conform to local plans based on the economical use of combined resources' (Dike Report, p. 40). The conclusions of the Dike Commission on the position of the Voluntary Agencies may perhaps be summarised as follows in its professional aspects, should

—

and we have not failed to been repeatedly acknowledged in this Report, were the pioneers of education and until ten years ago, received little or no aid from the state. They have done magnificent work and will continue to do so. There can be no doubt that at present the Voluntary Agencies succeed more than the Regional Government or the (i)

Whatever the defects of the

note these

existing system

—the Voluntary Agencies,

as has

AFRICAN EDUCATION

192

Local Authorites in arousing local interest in educational purposes. It will be unwise not to use their facilities and services. (ii) In recommending the continuation of the existing Voluntary Agency system, we strongly urge that some of its undesirable features be eliminated. There is, for instance, the absence of an efficient system of accounting. This has been a source of bitter complaint against Voluntary Agencies, particu-

we visited. There can As has been indicated elsewhere in this Report, those who collect public funds must use them strictly for the purpose for which they are intended and must make available to the contributors detailed statements on the use to which their money has been put. The same goes for the use made of the Government's grants-in-aid to Voluntary Agency schools. (iii) We consider that all Voluntary Agency managers of schools should be drawn from the ranks of schoolmasters who are engaged in educational work. At present, we believe that this class of people, both in the Protestant and Catholic Agencies have come largely from the ranks of the clergy. If the managers are drawn from the rank and file of schoolmasters they will maintain the denominational standpoint in education and at the same time can receive grants-in-aid and be accountable to the Government through the Provincial Education Officer, as to the way these grants are disbursed larly the Catholic Mission, in the various places that

be no two minds about

this question.

and used. They will also be able to give much needed professional advice under their charge. (iv) Elsewhere we have stressed the need for Nigerianization at all levels of education. The new managers should be drawn from able Nigerian teachers in the primary schools where, at present, there is little prospect or opportunity for promotion and men of ability are driven as a consequence to find scope for their talents and ability outside the educational field. No opportunity should be missed for training Nigerians in responsibility in a service that is bound to be run and controlled before long by Nigerians, to schools

(op.

cit.,

p. 47).

In most countries, then,

— a majority (Gambia) — already

agencies

of

all

satisfy

many

of the schools of the voluntary

schools in

such

all

minimal

countries except one

requirements

as

are

prescribed by the government to earn a grant, and are, for most practical purposes,

already within the national system.

In some

Zambia) voluntary agencies have already relinquished a number of schools to local authorities and there is no doubt that many others feel pressed to do so by present difficulties. There are, nevertheless, many who feel that any worthwhile system of education must be inspired by spiritual ideals such as can be satisfactorily achieved only by a partnership between Church and State

countries, too, (such as

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

193

and the proposals made by the Dike Commission indicate some of the grounds on which such a partnership might be based.

THE FINANCE OF EDUCATION The principal sources of revenue

are, in all countries, the central

government, the local authorities, the voluntary agencies, and the parents. It is, however, becoming increasingly apparent that the contribution which the voluntary agencies the owners of the majority of schools and colleges can make to recurrent expenditure will become proportionately less and less, partly because of their diminished revenue and partly because of the extremely rapid increase in the cost of education. In any event, it seems reasonable that the cost of the national systems of education now being developed should be more widely spread, in which case (as was suggested by the Committee of Inquiry in Nyasaland, 1962) it might become possible to channel the efforts of the voluntary agencies to other forms of

—

—

social service

Nor

which are more suitable

are local authorities in

many

for voluntary effort (p. 258). 7

areas at present able to

make

any substantial increase in the contribution for which they are already responsible; indeed, by far the greater part of the expenditure they administer is met from the grants made by the Ministry or Department of Education (see Table III). On grounds of expediency and social responsibility, however, there seems to be good reason why local authorities should be encouraged to assume greater responsibility for the administration of this increased expenditure

and even

in collecting

pointed out, this

more of

may imply

it

and, as the Committee of Inquiry

the imposition of a rate as well as the

collection of fees.

A

third source of revenue

course,

seem

is

school fees, a charge which may, of

unjustifiable in a democratic society

if it

causes

some

children to be deprived of the benefits of education. Yet only three countries have so far (1964) been able to introduce fee-free education in the primary school Ghana, Western Nigeria and, up to Stan-

—

dard III only, Eastern Nigeria. Elsewhere, parents are usually required to pay fees on a graduated scale amounting, in Kenya (in 1961) for example, to 20s. annually in the four primary classes, 45s. in the intermediate classes and as much (or 200s. for girls) in secondary schools. Fees vary from one as 3005. district to another, however, and there are more districts in Kenya where higher or lower fees are paid than those which apply the standard fee. The much higher fee for secondary education, moreover,

—

AFRICAN EDUCATION

194

includes the cost of boarding and bursaries awarded large

number

some

by

is,

many

in

reduced by Tanganyika a the primary schools of cases,

district councils. Similarly, in

of relatively low fees received in

authorities are in effect used to

pay the remissions of fees for

children attending upper primary schools run by the voluntary agencies (Planning Mission, p. 41). 9 It is not possible to form an accurate picture of the contribution

which

fee

countries

income makes

now show

to the total cost of education,

this as a separate source of

following figures, which refer to Kenya, indicate that fees provide a substantial part of the total cost.

TABLE

as

few

income, but the

may

still

VI

Recurrent Expenditure on Education in

Kenya (African District

education)

Boards

Government

From

Expenditure

District

From

Districts

Councils

fees

£i,548,n7

£3!2,9i8

£1,607,893 £1,980,089 £2,479,28i

£274,934 £286,526 £538,920 £525,333 £565,552

£349,090 £382,107

incl.

954-5 J955-6 1

1956-7 1957-8 1958-9 1959-60

Though

fees

grants to

£2,718,427 £3,234,045

may

£597,269 £746,684 £797,692

continue to cover a substantial part of the recur-

rent cost of education in cent, in 1959/60)

£45 Moo

it is

some countries

(in

Kenya, as much as 20 per main burden is borne by

quite apparent that the

the government either directly, as in post-primary education, or

through grants to local authorities and it is on the ability government to meet this expenditure, rather than on any other source, that the continued development of education in all Commonwealth countries now depends. Recurrent expenditure on education in a number of Commonwealth countries is shown as a proportion of total government expenditure in the following table (Table VII). In many, the budget for education is indeed the largest in the government and in some total expenditure on education (i.e. including expenditure on capital account) represents more than one-fifth of the national budget. indirectly

of the central

;

TABLE

VII

Recurrent Expenditure on Education compared with recurrent Expenditure

by Government in Selected Countries (igjg-62) ('000 omitted)

Country

ig^g-60

Bechuanaland*

Ghana**

Kenya

£88,042 £12,830

Nigeria, Eastern

Sierra

Leone

£321

5'6%

n-i%

£i23,oooE £i6,28iE

£i28,042E £i7,26 4 E

£31,670 £5,535

£43,394 £6,489

£38,624 £6,526

17-4%

14-9%

16 9

£6,940 £i,i94

£7,93i

I7'2%

i4'5%

£21,496 £7,171

£22,770

£20,057

£8,773

£7,275

33'3%

38-6%

36-3%

£12,861 £5»76o

£15,259 £6,777

£16,801 £6,94i

447%

44.4%

£io,i49

£12,426 £1,668

16

Tanganyika

£2,881

£138

i3'4%

£1,658

Swaziland*

£2,475

i3'2%

— Western

ig6i-2

H-5%

Malawi

Nigeria,

1960-1

-3%

13-6%

£3,259

£1,729

£497 15-2%

£284 16 -o%

£25,983 £4,346

£30,482 £5,051

167%

16-5%

Zambia

£I

AT1 4

,

I

% 53

"5°/ 3 /o

— £2278E £4oiE 17-6%

—

£i8,6 3 7E

£i9,775E

£ 2 ,6 34 E

£ 3 ,866E

14-1%

19-1%

Figures show total recurrent expenditure by government and (underneath) recurrent expenditure on education. * All expenditure, recurrent

development funds (Table 141, E Estimated expenditure.

and

capital.

** Combined consolidated and iq6i (Accra, 1963).

Statistical Year-book

AFRICAN EDUCATION

196

According to some sources, education 'cannot realistically exceed 20 per cent, of the budget however great the popular pressure for it may be' (quoted from The Economist of 13 December 1958) and as a number of countries are already spending up to this amount the crucial question is, of course, whether expenditure at this level will enable a country to reach Addis Ababa targets (universal primary education for six years followed by six years of secondary education for 30 per cent, of the age-group)

by 1980.

In some countries, revenue and expenditure have grown abnormally in recent years. In Eastern Nigeria for example, expansion might normally be expected to lie between 5 to 10 per cent, per annum but in fact revenue has increased by more than 50 per cent, between 1955 and i960 and expenditure by more than 120 per cent. It is unlikely, however, that the large revenue increases of this period will be repeated (they arose from the introduction of Regional income tax and an increased share of Federal revenues) and the Dike Commission concluded that Regional revenues should not be expected to grow in future years at

more than £500,000 per annum. 'Expenditure

needs', says the

Commission,

assumed that they are

'are difficult to assess

but

it

may be

some £500,000 commitments such as staff

certain to increase at a rate of

annum merely in order that existing increments and increased costs can be met. In view of the financial per

we

we have been bound

to conclude that the sums on educational purposes in the next five years are unlikely to be to any considerable degree greater than those being made available in 1959-60 and that the realization of many of our hopes of educational development must be spread over many

situation as

see

it,

available for expenditure

years' (p. 27).

may be noted in passing, moreover, that expenditure on educaby the Federal Government of Nigeria is a much smaller proportion of total expenditure than it is in either of the Regions. Both the Eastern and the Western Regions have been spending up to 40 per cent, of the Regional revenue on education but the proportion for the Federation as a whole (i.e. including the Federal contribution) is much lower. This is apparent in Table VIII which is quoted from the Report on the Educational System in Eastern Nigeria (p. 28). Analysis of this expenditure on education in the Eastern Region shows that a high proportion of the total cost was incurred on primary education (667 per cent.) and that the second largest item of expenditure (12-2 per cent.) was on teacher-training; secondary It

tion

education received only 7-2 per cent, of the

total.

The

conclusion

;

:

;

CONTROL AND DIRECTION

I

97

suggested by these figures and the unlikelihood of any dramatic

was that fee-free education could only be extended at the cost of other forms of educational expenditure as an example, it was expected that the extension by one year of fee-free primary education in the Eastern Region would swallow up practically the whole of any further sums that might be available for increase in revenues,

;

TABLE

VIII

Recurrent Expenditure for Education in Nigeria, 1958-g

Percentage

Federal Govmt. Western Region Northern Region Eastern Region TOTAL

Total

Expenditure

spent on

expenditure

on education

education

£35,000,000 £14,800,000 £11,400,000 £12,000,000

£5,900,000 £2,800,000

39'9% 26-6%

£4,900,000 £15,700,000

4° '9%

£73,200,000

£2,100,000

6%

21-4%

educational expansion. Such a degree of stringency obliges administrations in other countries besides the Eastern

Region of Nigeria to

consider very carefully which forms of education must be given

whether these are popularly attractive Commission felt obliged to recommend a greater expansion and improvement of secondary education and also the radical expansion and improvement of teacher-training, without which no improvement can be expected in the standards of primary education. A further example of the great strain which the developing programmes of education are bound to place on national economies is provided by the inquiry which the Unesco Planning Mission carried out in Tanganyika in 1961. This inquiry was necessarily based on assumptions, any one of which might fail to be justified over such a long period as fifteen years, and of these the chief were priority in the national interest,

or not. In the event, the Dike

(i)

that the

G.N.P. would increase by

3 per cent, per year at

constant prices; (ii)

that capital expenditure

would be between 20 and 25 per

cent.

of recurrent expenditure (iii)

that there

would be

a steady

growth of recurrent expenditure

AFRICAN EDUCATION

198 (iv)

that not

more than one-quarter

of the additional income of

each Tanganyikan arising from economic growth could be allocated to education;

(i.e.

all development would be at the costs incurred when the was undertaken at the direct request of the Government without aid from overseas).

On these

assumptions, the report notes that the suggested limit for

(v)

that

task

recurrent expenditure on education in 1980 would be just under £15 million whereas on the same assumptions, the recurrent expenditure

implied by the Addis Ababa targets might amount to £43 \ million

per annum.

A literal interpretation of these figures suggests that either the cost and quality of education must be reduced or the achievement of the 'Addis Ababa' targets be deferred. But there are also grounds for believing that the choice

may be

less

harsh than this; the targets

agreed at Addis Ababa assumed a substantial contribution from other sources (amounting to probably one-fifth of the total cost in 1980) which was deliberately omitted from the estimates of the Unesco Mission in Tanganyika the development of new media and particularly the use of radio and TV programmes may enable some of the ;

increasing costs of education to be restrained while permitting a substantial increase in

its availability;

many

of the present achieve-

ments of the independent countries of Africa would have seemed incredible fifteen years ago and judgements made today on what could be achieved in fifteen years' time

may

also fall short of the

emphasized in the Report, it is in any event unsound to defer present endeavours on the basis of estimates which are themselves based on contingent assumptions (any one of which could change the total perspective). Even so, it is apparent that the achievement of Addis Ababa targets or even something less, depends very much on the careful and detailed planning of expenditure in advance. Development plans have accordingly been drawn up in some countries (such as the Federation of Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Tanganyika and Ghana) 11 and are in preparation in others, with a view to discovering the amount of money likely to be available for education, the most effective way of allocating expenditure with a view to achieving the targets sets at Addi Ababa and the most promising methods of raising the money needed. reality.

Indeed, as

One way

is

of interpreting these various and wide-ranging changes in

CONTROL AND DIRECTION the methods by which education

is

199

controlled and directed

haps, to conclude that they follow directly

is,

per-

upon the enormous

expansion of educational opportunity to which so many countries in Africa are now committed. Certainly, the devolution of responsibility,

through the development of local authorities and the creation of school-boards and governing bodies, has proceeded furthest in those countries where educational opportunity has been expanded most rapidly in Ghana, Western and Eastern Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. An alternative and more probable interpretation is that these changes were in any case implicit in the pattern of constitutional government, that such developments were inevitable and that their emergence in some countries sooner than others is no more than

—

fortuitous.

In either event, the most significant result in most countries has been the establishment of local authorities as the bodies directly responsible for primary education and in some indeed, for a number of training colleges and secondary schools also. These bodies already bear a substantial part of the cost of the schools they control and since some governments are now allocating as much as one-fifth of the national expenditure to education, it seems inevitable that local bodies will have to bear a substantial proportion of any further increases in the cost of education.

These momentous developments have

not,

as yet,

led to any

dramatic changes in the position of the voluntary agencies, which as

owners of a majority of the schools in most countries have retained the right to nominate a majority of the governors and

school-boards for their

own

schools.

But there

is

members

of

no country where by

proportion of the recurrent cost of education is not borne by the government (directly or indirectly) and this, together with the changes in the pattern of administration already mentioned, far the greatest

has led to a clear demand in several countries that agency schools should conform more closely to the standards set by the state in organization, teaching, accounting and staffing. There is, however, in all a deep concern that education shall continue to be inspired by

such as could be ensured, one would hope, through between Church and state.

spiritual values

a partnership

AFRICAN EDUCATION

200

REFERENCES i.

2.

3.

4. 5.

Department of Education, Kenya. Education Department Triennial Survey ig 58-60 (Government Printer, Kenya, 1961). Ministry of African Education, Northern Rhodesia. Triennial Survey, 1958-60 inclusive (Government Printer, Lusaka, 1961). Ministry of Education, Western Nigeria. Annual Report of the Ministry of Education 1958-9 (Sessional Paper No. 10 of i960) (Government Printer, Ibadan, Western Nigeria). Nuffield Foundation. African Education (London, 1953). Ministry of Education, Kenya. Annual Summary 1961 (Government Printer, 1962).

7.

Ministry of Education, Eastern Nigeria. Annual Report, 1959. Ministry of Education, Nyasaland. Committee of Inquiry into African Education (Government Printer, Zomba, 1962).

8.

Ministry of Education, Ghana. Education Report for years 1958-60

6.

(Accra, 1962). 9.

Unesco. Report of Educational Planning Mission for Tanganyika

(Paris,

1962). 10.

11.

Ministry of Education, Eastern Nigeria. Annual Report, i960 (Official Document No. 10 of 1963). Federal Government of Nigeria. Development Plan 1962-8 (Lagos).

Eastern Nigeria Development Plan 1962-8, (Official document No. 8 of 1962). (Government Printer, Enugu, 1962). Government of Western Nigeria. Western Nigeria Development Plan

1962-8 (Sessional Paper No. 8 of 1962) (Ibadan). Nigeria. White Paper on Education Development in Northern Nigeria, 1961 (Government Printer, Kaduna, 1961). Draft Development Plan for period 1 July 1961 to 30 June 1965

Government of Northern

{Northern Rhodesia) (Lusaka, 1962).

Government of Nyasaland. Development Plan 1962-5 (Zomba, 1962). Government of Tanganyika. Development Plan for Tanganyika 1961/21963 1 4 (Dar

es Salaam, 1961).

Government of Ghana. Second Development Plan 1959-64 (Accra). Government of Ghana. Seven Year Development Plan (1963/64-1969/70) (Accra).

Government

of Sierra Leone. Ten year plan of economic and ment for Sierra Leone (1962/63-1971/72) (Freetown).

social develop-

—

8 Present Achievements and Future

Needs It

will

be evident from

this record of

endeavour and achievement that

Commonwealth countries in Africa are now committed to a programme of national education similar in aims and in scope (though all

it

may be

greatly different in degree) to those of the

countries in the world. This

develop

is

already

shown by

most developed

their intention to

primary education, to increase, greatly, the number of

full

places in secondary schools and to provide national institutions at the

many of them, indeed, the pace of educational development over the past ten years has been so rapid that it may almost be likened to a coming of age in education and it may accordingly be useful to recall those developments which now emerge as most significant during this period of intensive and continuing

university level. In

change. First among these is, undoubtedly, the progress which has been made towards the reorganization of primary education as a stage of education in its own right and with it, of course, the general movement towards the provision of all education at this stage in one school. Some countries have taken advantage of the opportunity which this

re-organization has provided, to shorten the period of education in

the primary school

— in

now completed

many

and where

in

Kenya,

for example,

primary schooling

is

areas in seven years instead of eightj

have existed hitherto, to system of education. In Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda, for example, all schools are being rapidly reorganized on a multi-racial basis. It is a considerable achievement, too, that countries like Ghana and Western Nigeria have been able to make primary education wholly free and the Eastern Region free up to Standard III. As a result of these programmes, substantial increases have been recorded in the number of children enrolled in the primary schools; introduce

parallel systems of education

a

single,

non-racial

AFRICAN EDUCATION

202 in Eastern Nigeria,

enrolments in Infants

in 1959 than in 1956, in

I

were 36 per

Ghana some 50 per

cent, higher

cent, of all children of

primary school age now attend primary schools (except in the North) and in Uganda the results of the recent census show that over 50 per cent, of the children in the 6-1 1 age-group now attend primary schools. In Swaziland, too, primary school enrolments in 1962 (68 per cent, of the age-group enrolled) were well over 20 per cent, higher than the targets set by the Unesco Conference of African States in Addis Ababa for that year. Fee-free education could be a hollow slogan, however, if up to half the children of any age-group fail to obtain a place in a primary school and still more so, if half of those admitted to school, must end their education four years later.

One

of the principal reasons for the

alarming disparity between the number of pupils enrolled in Year

and those classes,

in

Year VI or VII

is

that

many

with the result that education arbitrarily finishes for

pupils at the end of the fourth year.

A

I

schools have no upper

number

many

of countries have

accordingly decided as a matter of policy that the national interest will

be served better by the provision of senior classes in existing

schools (so enabling each school to offer a full or extended primary

course in one building) than by the creation of more junior primary schools; one of the major provisions of the Five Year Plan for African Education in Tanganyika was the provision of some two

hundred and thirty-eight new upper primary schools by 1962. Even so, much remains to be done in some areas such as Northern Nigeria, with a school population which was estimated at 2,810,258 in 1 96 1 (ages six to eleven years) hardly more than one child in ten attends school (10 -o per cent, for the Region as a whole) and there are still some areas in most countries where more than half the children still find no place in a primary school. At the secondary level, the most significant development has undoubtedly been the determined effort made by so many countries to break through the bottle-neck that has hitherto seeemed to hold up the development of full secondary education. The preparation of much larger numbers of pupils for higher education and careers at the semi-professional level has become a matter of absolute necessity, not only to enable administrations to become more self-sufficient but to ;

make

possible the further expansion of the educational programme Indeed, development plans in all countries forecast an increased expenditure on secondary education, and in some, one which is almost twice as great as the increases budgeted for education at the

itself.

PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND FUTURE NEEDS

203

primary stage. This emphasis on the expansion of secondary education has already led to a considerable increase in enrolments in post-primary classes. Moreover, 'through classes' are

now

seen to be as necessary in the

secondary school as in the primary, and as a matter of policy in some countries, pupils have been urged not to enrol in secondary schools unless they intend to complete the course (see the speech of the Minister of Education in Uganda in June 1963). Nor could this expansion have been carried out without substantial changes in the organization of a number of secondary schools to receive two or three

streams of pupils, a development which also seems to mark a significant stage in the growth of secondary education.

developments in the secondary schools, alternaforms of post-primary education have been developed in a number of countries, in Ghana the middle school, in Western Nigeria the modern school, in Eastern Nigeria the technical and commercial school and it now seems probable that these will be quite overtaken by the proposals which have been made in the Eastern and Western Regions of Nigeria to reorganize all secondary education on a more comprehensive basis. All secondary education is at present fee-paying but the intention seems clear to make it ultimately available to any who can show they are likely to profit from it and this is already foreshadowed by the action of local authorities, some of whom are making grants to cover the cost of fees for promising pupils. The most costly and, perhaps, the most spectacular achievement in the whole field of educational endeavour, however, has surely been the planning and realization of education at the university level. Today there is no Commonwealth country in Africa without its university or proposals to establish one. Far from being part of the prestige apparatus of a modern state, universities are in fact an indispensable part of the nation's equipment and, incidentally, one which enables it to secure services at this level far more cheaply than through universities in other countries. 'To fill an empty place in the University of East Africa costs us about £300; to send a student overseas costs us about three times that figure, or four times if he goes to the United States at our expense' (speech on the education estimates delivered to the National Assembly in Kampala by the Parallel with these

tive

;

Minister of Education, June 1963). The universities are, of course, a natural and necessary complement to the education programmes now

being developed complexity,

it

at other levels,

is

but as these increase in scope and it is only

becoming increasingly evident that

AFRICAN EDUCATION

204

through the contribution to teaching and research of African universities that the quality and character of African education can become fully developed.

Substantial progress has also been

made

in recent years towards

the recognition of teaching as a profession, with established standards

and an acknowledged social status. In a number of countries, courses of training have been lengthened, new and higher forms of qualification have been established and significant moves have been made towards the establishment of a single profesional qualification. Considerable changes have also been effected or initiated in the organization and administration of education. Most countries have now established an inspectorate separate from, and independent of the administration, and decisive moves have been made towards a decentralization of the education service by delegating greatly increased powers to the L.E.A.s and creating boards of governors for secondary schools and training colleges. Such, in brief, have been the main lines of educational development

most Commonwealth countries in Africa. In every country, howis a continuing need to inquire how far educational programmes, as at present conceived, are likely to meet the needs of in

ever, there

the future.

One

of the

programmes

more urgent requirements

in Africa

is

in virtually

that they should be

all

educational

grounded more deeply

in the culture of African countries. 'As the students of Africa are

exposed to the scientific and cultural aspects of the outside world, they need to be thoroughly grounded in a firm knowledge of their

own

cultural heritage.

The

education for the future citizens of Africa

must be a modern African education' {Final Report, Conference of African States, ig6i).

In many countries, too, the need has been expressed for a renewed emphasis on quality in the future development of educational programmes. 'First and foremost is the need for the educational system within the country or territory to satisfy the fervent desire of the people for an expansion of education of quality.' In most countries a steady improvement may be expected in standards of achievement as present programmes come to maturity, but the improvements in quality which are now seen to be necessary can probably be secured only through a continuing emphasis on values and particularly on African values wherever these are relevant. Some countries, indeed, have already indicated that they would be willing to curtail further expansion of the educational programme if this would make it possible

PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND FUTURE NEEDS

205

and quality of education. efforts will need to be made

to raise the general level of attainment

Thirdly,

it is

now

evident that special

to ensure that education does not become once again the right of only the few. 'In particular, there is a major need for the expansion of educational facilities and opportunities for the girls and women of Africa; and for the youth of Africa, particularly in the lower levels, who form a large group of citizens who must not be neglected. Emphasis must be laid not only on the formal schooling of children and young people but also and in particular, through techniques well suited to mass education on education for Africans in

most African countries

— —

of other age-groups' {Final Report, p. 4). Indeed there is probably no country in Africa where such needs are not generally evident

and they are explicitly stated in such current programmes as the Report of the Uganda

re-appraisals of educational

Education Commission. 'The expansion and improvement of teacher-training facilities and high-school education' are first and equal priorities; 'emphasis should be placed in primary education on quality rather than on quantity, on the elimination of wastage and on higher standards of teaching'; immediate and drastic changes should be made in syllabuses to meet the needs of the seven-year system of primary schooling; the Government's plans to raise the standards of agricultural and technical education are endorsed; girls' education should be expanded in all parts of the system and adult education should be regarded as an important part of the national provision for education.* In most countries, many changes must be expected, too, in the management and organization of education. Though the system of administration through local education authorities has been rapidly developed in many of them, the extent to which local education authorities can be given responsibility for education is a developing issue, and one which is being progressively defined in the light of experience, and it is by the same processes no doubt that the functions and responsibilities of such officers as the R.E.O., the D.E.O. and the inspector will be modified, enlarged and developed.

Secondary

which provision has been greatly and examples of alternative forms of secondary education the comprehensive school at Port Harcourt, the Galanos school in Tanganyika (an experiment education,

for

increased, remains predominantly academic in type

—

in secondary education with an agricultural bias) or the technical * Education in Uganda, a report of the 1963)-

Uganda Education Commission (Entebbe,

AFRICAN EDUCATION

206

—

secondary school at Ifunda are still remarkably few. Yet it is evident that new forms of post-primary education must soon be developed to meet the needs of the greatly increased numbers of pupils now receiving full primary education.

Even within those schools which are well established, considerable changes must be envisaged in the character of their work, their programmes of study and syllabuses. In nearly all countries, for example, a steady fall must be expected in the average age of entry to the

primary school and classes will become more homogeneous

than they are today, owing to the steady reduction in the age-range within each class which will follow on a policy of regular and auto-

matic promotion. As such changes take

effect, it

must be assumed that work of the primary

there will be a substantial shift of emphasis in the

school and corresponding changes in subject matter.

In some countries, the policy of integrating two systems of its own standards, has set special problems for

education, each with

the primary school and here, too, experiment and change are implicit.

In Swaziland, for example, where urgent

efforts are

now

being

made

two systems of education, European and African, a particular form of streaming has been proposed the 'opportunity class' (parallel to Standard V or Year VII) the purpose of which is to provide those pupils whom it is desired to promote to the secondary school with the further preparation which they need to reach the required level for entrance. In others such as Kenya, the decision to reduce the length of primary schooling from eight years to seven sets a similar problem for the primary school the problem of achieving the same standards of work in a shorter period of time and here, too, the larger schools now group children in streams by ability. Changes must be foreseen, too, in the pattern of examinations and in the importance attached to them. It seems evident, for example, that the importance of the primary school leaving examination must diminish wherever primary education is now followed by secondary education and indeed, in countries like Western Nigeria where the shortened programme of primary education prepares directly for entrance to secondary education, there seems little need for a

to integrate

—

—

—

—

primary school leaving examination as well as one for secondary it is obviously desirable that a common entrance examination should be established for secondary schools, so that standards can be ensured which are independent of each school,

school entrance. Again,

and indeed attainment ations Council are

tests

prepared by the West African Examin-

now used

in the selection of all candidates for

PRESENT ACHIEVEMENTS AND FUTURE NEEDS

207

secondary schools in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Gambia and for some twenty Government Colleges and girls' schools in Nigeria. In other countries, too, there is an evident need to establish an examination which sets recognized standards of attainment such as is administered by the Ministry of Education in Tanganyika and where no national or regional examining authority has been established, it seems essential that such examinations should be organized centrally and conducted by either the Ministry or Department of Education. Moreover it seems doubtful whether the School Certificate examin;

ation

is

able to

meet the needs of many candidates from African mininum entry and subject

countries because of the requirements for

grouping and, in a number of countries, the General Certificate of Education is now to be used as a qualifying examination at the end of the secondary school course. In this situation of rapid development and continuing change, it is hardly possible to summarize present achievements both briefly and fairly. Several countries are already well ahead of the intermediate targets which were set at the Addis Ababa Conference for 1965 and all Commonwealth countries in Africa have substantially increased their expenditure on education during the last decade. Yet there are a number whose present resources simply do not permit the further increases in expenditure which would be needed to achieve the targets set for 1980 and here, further expansion may have to wait on increased productivity, unless a considerable proportion of the increased cost can be met from fee-income or by aid from other countries (as was envisaged in the Final Report of the Conference of African States). Even so, in every country, achievements in education over the past decade have been remarkable; in all, the intention is clearly to improve the quality and extend the scope of the education which they

now

offer.

Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the general demand means through which independence itself

that education shall be the

be justified, and it is on this deeper conviction that future hopes can be most surely based.

shall

f (p. 20) Tanzania proposed to make a similar reduction in the length of primary schooling in 1964 and the Uganda Education Commission

recommended P. VII.

that primary education in

Uganda should be completed

in

Index Aba, occupational centre for women. 93 Accra, housecraft centres for women, 94 Adjustment to adult life, 90 Administration, pattern of, 168-74 Admission to technical institutes, 98 Admission to trade centres, 90 Adult literacy as a national goal. 17 Advisory Council, role of, 184-5 African studies in the university, 12 1-3 Agriculture in primary schools. 34 Agriculture, training in, 89, 104 Agricultural studies in the university. 124-5 Ahiara, voluntary* agency trade centre, 93

Ahmadu Aims

Bello, university of, 126. 135

in the secondary school, 51-52

palm weaving

Buganda,

Allport, G. W., 12

Animal husbandry, training schemes, in

primary

behavioural school and home, 5 maturity of young children, 13 ;

Cape Coast, University of 117, 130, 138 City and Guilds Institute, qualification for technicians, 97; courses offered, ,

103 Civics in primary schools, 34 Colby, courses for veterinary staff and

tutes, 100

Commercial secondary crafts

in

29; parents' opinion on education, 4; culture-gap between

schools,

agriculturists, 104; rural science for training college staff, 105 Commercial subjects in technica'.

All-Nigeria Academic Council. 133

104 Arts and

Blantyre technical institute, 101 Biesheuvel, S., 12 Break between primary and secondaryschooling, 52-53

primary schools.

Community

schools, 56

projects, 112. 114

Comprehensive schools, 56—59

29-30 Asuansi, junior technical institute, 92 Ateso as medium of instruction, 28

Conference of training college princi-

Automatic

in

Conference of African States (Addis

Autonomy

in the university,

promotion schools, 43-44

pals, 159

primary

Ababa) plan for educational development, 14, 17-18 Craftsman training, 90—96 Creative arts in primary schools, 29 Council, University (role and c :

11S-19

Ashby, Sir Eric, 121, 122

Badge scheme for women, 115 Bagisu, carving in primary schools, 29 Bantu cultures, characteristic shapes in, 11

Banjo Commission on automatic promotion, primary education, 45 46-47; comprehensive schools. 57 Basutoland, primary curriculum. 31, 33 primary school enrolment, 39; ;

tution), 119 affairs in primary schools, 34 Curricula in primary schools, 31, 33; in lower secondary schools, 60; in modern and middle schools, 63 in upper secondary schools, 64-66

Current

;

;

university of, 117; training colleges in, 147; teachers in sen-ice. 15c

graduate teachers, 164 Bechuanaland, graduate teachers, 164; Lobatsi college, 145; primary school enrolment, 39; training college 5, 147 Bemba as medium of instruction, 28 Behavioural development of African children, 9

Dar

es Salaam technical institute, 101 Degrees for teachers, 127. 163-5

Delegation

control

of

authorities 171. 173 Development Plans,

198;

priorities

in,

to

local

importance of, Zambia,

13-18;

15. 67-68; Western Nigeria, 17, 69; Eastern Nigeria, 15; Ghana, 15, 69; Federal Government, 15, 69; Tan-

ganyika, 15

_

"

AFRICAN EDUCATION

210

Dike Commission on comprehensive schools, 58 voluntary agencies, 191-2 Education Officer, responDistrict ;

170

sibilities, 169,

Eastern Nigeria, enrolment in primary schools, 39; evidence that wastage is decreasing, 41 handicrafts in primary schools, 35; organization of primary ;

education, 23 English as medium in primary school, 28-29; low standards criticized, 47; in the secondary school, 61 English Language Centre, Nairobi, 29

Enrolment in middle schools, 74; primary schools, 39 Enrolment in secondary schools, 72; secondary modern schools, 74 Entebbe, evening classes, 108 Entrance requirements for universities, 137-8

Enugu, trade

centre, 91; courses offered

in trade centre, 95

Evening Evening

classes, 107

institutes, 108 Examinations, English as medium criticized, 81-82 Examinations in secondary schools, 79-82 Examinations, criticism of Standard VI, 76

Expansion of technical institutes, 99 Expansion of universities in Africa, 141-2 Expenditure on education, Addis Ababa forecasts,

14; in selected countries, 174; in Eastern Nigeria, 196-7; in Federation of Nigeria, 197; as proportion of total expenditure, 195

Extension services provided by universities, 126 Extension services provided by Government, 104-6

Family life among the Yoruba, 5-7 Family incomes among the Lunda-

Ndembu, 3-5 Family Family

life life,

in Jamaica, 9-10

importance for child, 13

Failures in teacher-training

programmes

(Western Nigeria), 156-7

Farm 105

Institutes

in

Eastern Nigeria,

Farm

schools in Uganda, 55

Farmers' need for training, 89 Federal Government Development Plan (1962-8), 15, 69, 198 Federal University of East Africa, 117, 133-5 Fees, primary and secondary, 193-4 Follow-up literature in community programmes, 112 Forestry, training schemes, 105 Freetown, trade centre, 96 Further education denned, 88

Galanos secondary school, 56, 205 Gambia, enrolment in primary schools, 39;

Government

teacher-training

centre, 145, 147; number of teachers in service, 150; number of teachers

in secondary schools, 164 in primary schools,

Gardening

34;

by Banjo Commission, 46 General knowledge in upper primary criticisms

schools, 34 General Certificate of Education, 79-80 General Certificate replaces W.A.S.C, 207 Geography in upper primary school, 34

Ghana, average of

Institute

size of colleges,

148; function of the Education, 128, 157;

and

constitution

craft teaching in secondary schools,

89; courses offered in J.T.I.s, 94; enrolment in primary schools, 39; foundation of University, 117; introduction of four-year training for non-graduates in teachers, 163; secondary schools, 163; number of teachers in service, 150; Junior Technical Institutes (formerly trade centres), 92 organization of primary ;

education,

23

;

parental

attitudes

towards children, 7; repeating in primary schools, 43-44 school attendance percentage of all pupils, 38; shortage of trained teachers, 149-150; ;

social responsibilities of the teaching profession, 162; teaching qualifications, 152; technological studies

in

the

colleges,

medium

university,

130;

training

147; use of English as of instruction in primary

schools, 29 Girls'

education,

parents, 2-3

;

opposition

from

restricted background, 5

INDEX Grade

III tests, 91 Graduate teachers, training of, 127

Grammar

purpose, school, 53-54; curriculum, 54; practical subjects, 54 Grieve, D. W., 87

Group work Guidance

in primary schools, 35 to young adults, 90

Gwembe-Tonga,

resettlement Gulu, evening classes, 108

Goldway, M.,

of, 8

35, 103

Handicraft in upper primary classes, 35 Handwork in primary schools, 35 Harbison, F., 14 Health education in upper primary classes, 34; criticism of teaching by Banjo Commission, 46 Higher National Certificate, 97, 102 Higher School Certificate, 79 History in primary schools, 34

Hudson, W.,

11, 12

Ibadan, University of, 117 Ibadan, constitution of University Council, 119; summary of courses offered,

136-7

university of, 117, 131 Ifunda, technical secondary school, 97 Ijebu-Ode, trade centre, 91

Ife,

Income, proportion spent on education, it

195

Indiscipline in secondary schools, 83-84 Industrial training schemes, 93

Inspection of primary schools, 177-8 Inspection of secondary schools, 176 Inspectorate, development of, 174-6 Institutes of education, 128,

157-60

evening classes, 108 Junior College (Kenya and Uganda), 66 Junior secondary schools proposed in Western Nigeria, 57-58 Junior Technical Institutes replace trade schools in Ghana, 92 Jinja,

211 amalgamation

Kenya,

of smaller T.T.C.s, 148; courses offered in trade centres, 95; co-ordination of policy in training colleges, 158-9;

curriculum in lower primary classes, curriculum in upper primary 31 classes, 33 length of primary schooling, 22 enrolment in primary schools, 39; non-graduate teachers in secondary schools, 164; percentage of children in school, 40; shortening of primary course, 24; standards set ;

;

;

entrance to trade centres, 92; streaming in intermediate schools, 45; teaching qualification, 153; training colleges, 147; University College, 117, 130, 133-4 Kpandu, Junior Technical Institute, for

94

Kumasi, technical

Kwame

University of Science and Technology, 117, 130, 135

Lagos,

percentage

Kaduna, technical institute, 101 Kampala, technical institute, 98, 101 Kano, technical institute, 100

children

of

primary schools, 40; University

in of,

117, 119, 123, 127, 135 in primary schools,

Language teaching 28-29

Length of primary school course, 22-24 L.E.A. training colleges, 146

Length of training courses

for teachers,

162-3 Literacy in selected countries, 109 Literacy campaigns, 109-14 Lozi as medium of instruction Zambia, 28 Localization in Zambia, 67 Lobatsi government training

in

college,

145

Local education authorities, 180-3, 193

London, scheme of with

special relationship

Commonwealth

universities,

120, 138

Lunda-Ndembu Kabete, technical and trade school, 95

institute, 99, 101

Nkrumah,

as

example of sub-

sistence society, 3-5

Luganda as medium of Uganda, 28

instruction in

Lugbara as medium of instruction Uganda, 28 Lusaka technical institute, 101

in

K.A.P.E. examination, 24 Kariba dam, resettlement schemes, 8

Kenema, courses

Lwo

in

96

offered in trade centre,

as

medium

Uganda, 28

of

instruction

AFRICAN EDUCATION

212

Malawi, enrolment in primary schools, 39; enrolment in primary classes showing extent of wastage (1956-60), 41 number of training colleges, 147; organization of primary school course, 22; percentage of children attending ;

schools, 40; proposal to lengthen training of teachers, 162; shortage of trained teachers, 151; reorganization of examinations in

primary

training

primary schools,

159; teachers in secondary and schools 150; teachers in secondary colleges,

164; technical institute at Blantyre, 101 training of craftsmen, 95 training of teachers, an appraisal, schools,

;

;

155; University of, 117, 138

Makerere, extra-mural classes, 108 Maleche, A. J., 2, 4 Management of schools, 185-187 Mafebeng, aided night schools, 107 Mampong, Junior Technical Institute replaces trade school, 92 skills in primary school, 29-30;

Manual

changes envisaged in Eastern Region, 35; comments by Banjo Commission,

47 Marris, P., 6-7 Masai, social organization of, 3 Maseru, aided night schools, 107 Maseru Agricultural School, 104 between Maturational differences

Baganda and European children,

13

Mauritius, University College (Lockwood Report), 118 Mbale, evening classes, 108 Mbawa, courses for veterinary staff, 104 McFie, J., 10-11

Medical studies in universities, 125 Metalwork in upper primary school, 35

Minority

time

in

upper

secondar}'

school, 65

Middle schools

Ghana, 64 Mkwawa, sixth form college, 66 Modern schools in Uganda, 55

Moshi

in

trade centre, 97

Mohales Hoek, aided night schools, 107 Mombasa, Institute of Muslim Education, 101

Monze, Agricultural Training Centre, 105

Mungwi, courses Music

in the

for farmers, 106

primary school, 30

National Council for teacher training, 157 National Universities Commission of Nigeria, 13 1-3

comments

Nature study, Commission,

46;

in

by Banjo primary

the

school, 34

Ndembu, Nigeria,

social organization of, 3-5

Ashby Report on need

for

89; Federal Development Plan (1962-8), 15; College of Arts, Science and Technology, 131; number of training agricultural

colleges,

education,

147;

University

of,

117,

131, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141; state-

ment

of aims by University of Nigeria, 120; vocational training for

women, 93 Northern Nigeria, duration of primary education, 23 enrolment in primary ;

39; percentage of children in primary schools, 40; qualifications schools,

primary school teachers; 154; in primary schools, 150; teachers in secondary schools, 164 Number skills in the primary school, 30 Nursery schools in Uganda, 27 Nyanja as medium of instruction, 28 for

teachers

Omari, T. P., 7 Ordinary National Certificate, 97, 102 Oshogbo, courses offered in trade centre, 91

Oyo, courses offered

in trade centre, 91

Parental attitudes to education, 4-5 Part-time course, 98 Perception of depth in two-dimensional drawings, 11 -12 Pettigrew, T. F., 11 Committee, Phillips proposals for

primary education in Malawi, 42 Physical culture, 30-31 Port Harcourt, apprentice training in the Institute of Radio Technology, 93 Pre-primary training, 26-27 Primary education, an autonomous stage, 24 Primary education, relative importance in a national programme, 14 Primary schools, inspection of, 177-8 Priorities in university studies, 128-9 Priorities in educational planning, 13-19

;

INDEX Professional status of teachers, 150-2 Professional

training

in

universities,

123-4

Programmes of

special significance in

universities, 12 1-7

Projects in primary schools, 35-36 Provincial education officers, responsibilities,

169

Qualifications of teachers

in

primary

213

College with University of Durham, 120; courses offered in trade centres, 96; enrolment in primary schools, 39; organization of primary education, 23; teachers in primary schools, 150; teachers in secondary schools, 164; three-year training for teachers, 162; training colleges, 147; University College of, 117 Social customs and change in African

communities, 3-9

schools, 152-4

Social significance of the school, 82-83

Reading

ability, degrees of, 109 Recognition of technical institutes, 100 Recruitment for Departmental courses, 104 with Relationship Universities of University of London, 120 Repeating in primary schools, 43-44 Rhodesia, organization of primary education, 22; enrolment in primary schools, 39; junior technical courses

replace trade colleges,

courses,

147;

teachers

93;

training

in

service,

and Nyasaland, University 150; College of, 117, 123, 137 Rogers, C. A., 87 Role of a university in Africa, 120-1 Runyoro as medium of instruction, 28 Rural areas, organization of primary education, 23

Sandwich courses

in technical training,

98 Sapele, courses offered in trade centre, 9i

Secondary school teachers, shortage in Tanganyika and Zambia, 70 Secondary school teachers, training programmes, 163-166 Secondary schools with technical streams (Eastern Region), 54

Secondary technical schools (Ghana), 54 Selection for secondary schools, 75-78, 207; critique, 77-78; West African Conference on Educational and Occupational Selection, 75-76; Swaziland, 77

Shell-B.P., craftsman course, 93 Singing in primary schools, 30 Sixth form colleges, 66 Size of training colleges, 146-9 Sierra Leone, association of University

Societies

organized

on

subsistence

economy, 3-5 Staffing the universities, 139-40

Standards for entry to training colleges, 162

Streaming by

ability in

primary schools,

45 Subjects offered in universities, 135-6 Suitability of courses in technical subjects, 102-4 Supervisors of schools, absorption into inspectorate, 178 Swaziland, A-level centre, 66; enrolment in primary schools, 39; courses offered in trade centre, 96; extent of illiteracy, 109; reducing wastage, 41-42; teachers in primary schools, 150; teachers in secondary schools, 164; training colleges, 147

Tamale, Junior Technical Institute, 92 Takoradi, Technical Institute, 94, 101 Tanganyika, Draft Five-Year Plan (1957-61),

22;

difficulties

of small

enrolments in primary schools, 39; measures to reduce repeating, 44; percentage of pupils attending primary schools, 40; physical education in primary schools, 31 proposal for Institute of Education, 158; organization of primary education, 22; projects in primary schools, 35 subjects in lower primary schools, upper primary in subjects 31 schools, 33; teachers in secondary colleges, 148;

;

;

schools, 164; teachers in service, 150; teaching qualification, 153; training colleges, 147; University College, 117, 127, 128, 133-4, 135 Institute, 101

Tarkwa, Technical Teaching,

conditions

status, 150, 155

of service

and

AFRICAN EDUCATION

214

Teaching, quality of in Western Nigeria,

and character of primary education, 25-26, 36

46-47 Teacher-training programmes, need for reorganization, 155-7 Teso, bride price, 4 Teso, twig-work in primary school, 29 Technical streams in grammar schools,

54-55 Technical occupations denned, 97 Technical education at three levels, 90 Technical institutes, courses offered, 97 admission to, 98 list of, 101 Teacher-training in universities, 127-8 Technological studies in universities, 130-1 Teachers, numbers in service, 150

Unesco Commission on establishment of University of Lagos, 119, 127, 133 education, need recogUniversity nized in all countries, 16, 118 University Grants Committee, constitution and function, 13 1-2 Universities,

Urban

life,

list of, 117 adjustment of Yoruba

to,

5-7

;

Teaching

qualifications

for

non-

graduates, 152—3 Tivland, administration of justice in, 8 Tonga as medium of instruction, 28 Toro, black pottery, 29 Trade centres (schools), 90-97; admission to, 90 list of, 94-96 Training colleges, increase in numbers,

Vernacular languages, 28-29 Vernon, P. E., 9, 10 Veterinary science universities in 124-5, 129, 130 Vocation, the need to train for a, 88 Vocational training, current problems, 102-4 Voluntary agency schools, 187-92

I

;

145

Tumbuka

as

medium

of instruction, 29

U.A.C. trade centre, 93 Udi, community development, 113

Wastage Wastage

in primary schools,

41-42

in secondary schools, 70-71

West African School Certificate, West African Study Group

79, 207 (Binns||y|

Report), 174

leading courses to B.A. (Education), 127; courses offered in secondary technical schools, 101;

Western Nigeria, average size of training colleges, 149; Development Plar enrolment ii (1962-8), 17, 69; primary schools, 39; English a

Education Commission, 50, 66, 87, 144, 201 205, 206; enrolment in prim-

medium of instruction, 29; failure rate among teacher-trainees, 156

ary schools, 39; four-year training for teachers, 162; nursery schools, 27; need to amalgamate smaller colleges, 148; organization of primary education, 22 percentage of children attending primary school, 40; pretechnical courses, 92; repeating in primary schools, 44 secondary technical schools, 55, 88 schooling by age and sex (ages 6-15), 37; teachers in primary schools, 150; teaching qualification, 153; teachers in secondary

local authority training colleges,

Uganda,

,

;

;

;

schools,

164; technical institute in Kampala, 101 training colleges, 147; University College, 117, 128, 133-4, ;

135, 137

Under-age children

in

primary schools,

44

Unesco Conference of African States (Addis Ababa), 17; statement on aims

146

organization of primary educationj^ 23; percentage attending primarH school,

40;

proposed

Nationj^^

154; rapi increase in number of trainirt colleges, 146; repeating in primarr schools, 44; shortage of teachers, 14^ subjects taught in lower primary, 3 and upper primary, 33; teachers secondary schools, 164; three-ye

Teachers'

Certificate,