Commonwealth and Foreign

THE CASE FOR NATIVE EDUCATION

By SIR DONALD CAMERON

EVEN in circles keenly interested in colonial affairs it is not generally realised that education is the one branch of colonial administration in which the Home Government has defined policy in specific terms, and that administration in that field is regularly supervised by an Educational Advisory Committee at the Colonial Office. The purpose is to educate the peoples of each African dependency so as to fit them to their own environment as it expands ; and though Africa may need primarily cultivators, she needs much beside that.

At the bottom of the educational pyramid we seek first a sound structure of primary* education, recognising that in such tropical countries as Nigeria or Tanganyika the bulk of the population must remain peasants and small farmers. We must determine what is the minimum of education (with a strong practical bias) that should be afforded so as to permit money and labour to be expended in the interests of the great mass of the people to the maximum advantage. If the curriculum is mal-adjusted and unsuitable and the pupil does not stay the course,1- has not acquired before he leaves school the minimum of education that will be of real practical value to him, it is obvious that the money and effort expended on his schooling will merely have been wasted.

The true conception of primary education is well stated in the Report of the Committee on Higher Education in East Africa under Lord De La Warr (Col. No. 142): " Primary education, if rightly conceived, should have a dual purpose. On the one hand, it should aim at providing gifted pupils, who will form the minority, with the roads and bridges which will lead them to higher education. On the other hand, it should aim at providing the less gifted or less ambitious pupils, the majority, with such equipment as will render them, on leaving, fully adapted to their future environment." They remark later, in an admirable phrase, that the stopping-place at the conclusion of a primary course should be " a station at which a scholar can alight and not a casualty clearing-station."

We want the pupil to " get down " at a point where, taught to think for himself, he is equipped with sufficient learning to profit by the advice he has received from the Agricultural, Veterinary, Health and other services during his school career. From this class will be derived also some of the boys who are trained vocationally, for example, the excellent corps of Swahili-speaking sanitary inspectors in Tanganyika, the mechanics in the telegraph workshops in Nigeria who six years ago made very nearly the whole of the equipment for our wireless receiving station, and others.

The success of the primary school will depend increasingly on the quality of the teaching, which depends, naturally, on the education which the teacher has himself received. Except as an interim measure for the vernacular " bush " schools, it is imperative that the primary school teacher should have had a full secondary school education, conducted in the English language, before he proceeds to a training college for his vocational training as a schoolmaster, and it is in this respect that some of the tropical British dependencies have failed for the present. One, for example, a few years ago abandoned her scheme for providing a full secondary education on the ill- conceived plea of economy in public expenditure.

It is essential that there should be a sound system of secondary education, but not only for the purpose of pro- ducing properly qualified teachers for the primary schools. Full secondary courses in selected schools will also provide the ever-increasing personnel required for the clerical services and other vocations of this kind, as in this country ; and, most important of all, qualified candidates for the post-secondary professional courses already established at University' Col- leges, such as Achimota on the Gold Coast, Yaba in Nigeria and Makerere in Uganda. Yaba, for example, is already turn- ing out medical assistants qualified to undertake a large share in the public health services, men who will be eligible to sit

* " Primary " and " Secondary" are used in the old sense; the first denoting roughly the first six years and the latter the second six years of normal school life.

There will be wastage for other reasons, but that can be dealt with only when education can be made compulsory.

: Not least, in providing teachers for the Secondary Schools.

later for a diploma entitling them to private practice. Apart from the argument, unassailable in my view, that the African has a right to demand opportunity to attain to higher position in his own country, it is impossible for financial reasons largely to expand the social services if the whole of the personnel has to be imported at high cost from Europe.

The most urgent necessity at the moment is to increase the wealth of a country such as Nigeria, which produces no more than primary commodities. The people have practically no capital except their labour and their brains, and it is but an e:ementary proposition of sound business that their brains should be cultivated in order that the country may retain that part of its resources that it has to spend abroad now to remunerate " foreigners " for services that its own sons could provide if they were properly equipped. That they have the ability to take full advantage of such opportunity of higher education has already fully been demonstrated.

Under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations we are, as a Mandatory Power, in charge of the destinies of the people of Tanganyika as their guardians until they " can stand by themselves," and under the mandate the duty of promoting the material and moral progress " of the people reposes on our shoulders. It is now fully accepted in respon- sible circles that in fulfilling our obligations in these respects it is a primary duty that full opportunity of education should be afforded, within the resources of the country, and it is as fully postulated that we accept no lesser standards in the non- mandatory dependencies. In subscribing a sum of £roo,000 to the endowment fund of the new University College at Makerere, Tanganyika is therefore not only discharging one of the primary duties that she owes to her people, but is also making an exceedingly sound investment of her money, on which, I have no doubt, she will in a few years begin to reap an abundant return, just as Nigeria is already profiting from the money which she invested in establishing a Higher College at Yaba.

The cost of education in East Africa as a whole is unduly inflated, unfortunately, owing to the practice of providing separate schools for the various races—African, Indian, European, and in some cases Arab. Moreover, the cost of educating a European child at the public expense, as is neces- sary in some cases, wholly or partially, is much higher than the cost of educating a child at the public expense in this country. The time may arrive when one set of State-aided secondary schools might be deemed to be sufficient for the whole of the community ; it will clearly be impossible to establish a separate University College for the children of a comparative handful of Europeans. The Indians will, I believe, send their sons to Makerere.

In the scheme of education as I have tried to outline it, Government welcomes and encourages all voluntary educa- tional effort which conforms to the general policy, and in the countries with which I am dealing by far the larger part of the education is afforded in mission schools. Government schools are obviously more costly to the taxpayer, and high importance must be attached to the Christian teaching and influences in the church schools. There are other matters, such as girls' education (where the principles are very similar), community education, vernacular teaching, technical train- ing, &c., with which it is impossible to deal in this short article. I can only attempt to give in broad outline the objects we have set before ourselves and a sketch of the structure which seems to be required to give effect, as generously as possible, to the educational policy by which we are guided and our obligations to the people entrusted to our charge until they can stand by themselves. That policy is designed to avoid the error which had occurred previously, of turning out of the schools a considerable number of boys for whom no suitable employment will be available within reasonable expectation, and with care this can, I believe, be effected. There is no doubt that there will for many years be ample opportunity for the absorption of the pupils who pass out of the secondary and post-secondary institutions if the Govern- ments concerned have a genuine intention to utilise the ser- vices of the people of the country.