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Comparative Education
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The Adaptation Concept in British Colonial Education

Udo Bude Published online: 02 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Udo Bude (1983): The Adaptation Concept in British Colonial Education, Comparative Education, 19:3, 341-355 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305006830190308

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Comparative Education

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The Adaptation Concept in British Colonial Education

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UDO BUDE
INTRODUCTION: THE PHELPS-STOKES COMMISSION REPORTS The question whether it is pedagogically reasonable to transfer educational ideas and methods from one culture to another without alterations is always a point of debate if the results fail to meet the expectations. The situation of colonial education in Black Africa in the early 1920s was characterised by increasing disappointment in mission circles at the Africans' rejection of the churches' attempts to provide a more practice-oriented education and the growing experiences of the colonial administration that the Western-trained African elite demanded more political rights to determine their affairs. In this context an old controversial topic was taken up again: What kind of education was the most suitable one for Black Africa? Drawing on experiences with a specific type of education that was developed for ex-slaves after the American Civil War, with emphasis on the development of practical skills geared to the requirements of rural black communities in the Southern States, and backed by empirical data on their felt needs, Jesse Jones derived at a theory which justified a kind of education for blacks differing from that for whites. At the suggestion of the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, the Phelps-Stokes Fund convened and financed two commissions in 1920/21 and 1924 which evaluated the colonial educational systems in Africa. These commissions worked under the direction of the same Jesse Jones whose ideas heavily influenced the later reports. The results of the commissions' analysis of the educational situation in Africa were rather discouraging: they pointed to unsatisfactory developments caused by the acceptance and application of obsolete educational methods from Europe and the United States, particularly: the neglect of school organisation and inspection; neglect of a balanced education policy ensuring an education for both the broad masses and an elite; insufficient cooperation between the different colonial institutions and their representatives; and the lack of opportunities for Africans to participate in decision-making in educational institutions. The solution to the problems of education in Africa proposed by Jones and his colleagues was the design of an educational concept adapted to the needs of the people, completely orientated towards family and community life. Their proposed 'adapted education' for black Africa would, it was believed, diminish selfish individual competitiveness based on an unrelated bookish system, and instead develop the community as a whole by improving the general standard of living of the population through a community-oriented school system.

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Basic skills and knowledge in four main areas were seen as prerequisites for any improvements: health and hygiene; individual housing and living conditions; the use of local resources for agriculture and handicrafts; the organisation of leisure time. Special attention was to be given to the use of African languages as media of instruction in school and the teaching of rural or agricultural science. School farm work and training in local crafts formed a key element of the reform concept. The significance of the reports of the Phelps-Stokes commissions was not so much that they contained new, previously unknown ideas or concepts. The real innovation was the methodological substantiation furnished to support the use of primary schools for rural development in Africa. (1) ATTEMPTS TO TRANSPOSE THE ADAPTATION CONCEPT INTO PRACTICE The ideas of the Phelps-Stokes reports ultimately found their way into the guidelines of British colonial policy for Africa. The Advisory Committee on Educational Policy in British Tropical Africa drafted in two memoranda (1925 and 1935) the framework for an education policy for black Africa which was to remain in force in most African states until independence [1]. This committee placed even more emphasis than the Phelps-Stokes Commission on the necessity for school-community integration with a view to facilitating a peaceful evolution of traditional African societies. The ideal was to achieve integrated community progress. It was an ideal inspired by the fear that African society would be disrupted by the multitude of external forces which were coming to act upon it, an ideal based upon the conviction that education should serve to cement and strengthen those elements in African society which would enable it to adjust to the world of the twentieth century without losing its soul [2]. The primary school had to fulfil a twofold task at community level: it was to help maintain the acceptable, good elements of traditional society and at the same time prepare the population for social and economic change. Responsibility for the development of the communities was not, however, to be left to the schools alone, but was to be exercised in cooperation with other agencies (governmental or private). Surprisingly, the 1935 memorandum pointed outprobably on the basis of experience gained by thenthe limitations of community-oriented primary schooling: the limited influence of an adapted curriculum on the development of the community on the one hand and the fact that effective measures were dependent on the selection, training and supervision of the teachers [3]. With the propagation of the concept of adapted education for Black Africa within the framework of British colonial policy, further impetus was given to the practice- and environment-oriented education concepts which were already customary practice in, above all, the mission schools. Most mission schools could only be maintained because the communities bore the bulk of the maintenance costs, and non-existent equipment and teaching aids were compensated by creative use of locally available material. The following description of the situation in Uganda can be considered as typical of that in the rest of the British colonies in Africa and also of the French and Portuguese colonies in the 1930s. Wandira reports: Thus in the school days of many living Ugandans, 'manual' or 'communal' activities were a common feature of the school programme. Long hours were spent out of doors cleaning the compound, sweeping paths, planting flowers, cash and subsistence crops, scrubbing floors and doing a number of odd jobs that today constitute a charge

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upon the school budget. Produce from school gardens went towards the feeding of schools or the purchase of equipment. Most boarding schools of size kept such gardens, ostensibly for lessons in practical agriculture or the virtues of manual labour. In reality, by design or accident, they provided much needed relief to school finances [4]. Local or regional self-help efforts in various countries were considered as concepts for the realisation of the adaptation ideas of the Phelps-Stokes reports and supported by the governmental agencies as experiments. Many primary schools had been built on the basis of local initiative and operated for many years without financial assistance. As they were often equipped with untrained teachers, these schools adapted themselves to the conditions of their environment in order to facilitate learning at all. Since there was a general lack of teaching aids and reading material, the stories and proverbs of the tribe and the community, the customs of the cultural group and the local language became the media of instruction. The administration of these primary schools and the remuneration of the teachers were the responsibility of local institutions, such as the Native Authorities, which determined also the curricula and school organisation according to interest, equipment and local possibilities. The express orientation of the primary school to the community was only of a temporary nature. With the increase in state control incurred by state recognition, the centralistic elements in the curricula and the school administration became ever more determinant and the experimental, community-oriented character correspondingly weaker [5]. In addition to such reforms initiated via local initiatives, a number of reform efforts were made in the British colonies by governmental or semi-governmental agencies. Three reform approaches were introduced within the framework of adaptation efforts: (1) curriculum reforms for primary schools (e.g. Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania); (2) efforts to test reform ideas as a whole in pilot projects (e.g. Omu, Nigeria; Malangali, Tanzania); (3) reform concepts in the training of primary school teachers ('Visiting Teachers', Northern Nigeria; 'Jeanes Teachers', Kenya; and others). At the beginning of the 1930s English administrative officials tried to apply adaptation theories in practice. Changes in the primary school curriculum and the reduction of primary school attendance from eight to six school years were intended to reduce the rural exodus and inspire young people to become engaged in agricultural activities in their home villages (cf. in Nigeria) [6]. The ambitious aims of the reformers were not achieved, but the curricular changes gained ground in the schools. The three principal didactic elements of an orientation towards the environment, work and the community were introduced into the curriculum, as is proved by a contemporary observer from the former Gold Coast: hygiene was taught with many a practical demonstration of boiling and filtering water by simple means within the scope of any household. Flytraps were made; latrine construction and management were taught. The first half hour of every school day was a practical hygiene lesson in school cleaning. The African vernacular languages were receiving very considerable attention. African traditional history and custom appeared as subjects in the scheme of work. Handwork was prominent and African crafts... were supposed to have a place. Almost every school had its garden with control plots, experimental plots, rotation plots, and compost heaps... The theory was that the farmers in the area around would learn new ideas and modern practice from these gardens, and the school would thereby help the community... there were health days once a month, when the whole school would sally forth into the community and clean up the village, paying special heed to measures to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes... tree planting was indulged in by the schools, some

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planting hedges and grass to stop soil erosion. Some school workshops madeout of old tins and scrap materialsall sorts of useful mugs, containers, and household articles, such as had been seen by the Phelps-Stokes Commission in extension work among American Negroes [7]. In the years until political independence these curriculum aspects became burdensome and unpopular both to teachers and pupils. The majority of the teachers did not have the necessary technical knowledge to be able to apply the sophisticated education concept in practice. The yields of the school farms were as a rule not comparable with the harvest attained on local farms, despite the fact that the labour of the pupils was free of charge. Hygiene campaigns which took the form of an annual cleaning of the village were considered to be a strange hobby of the teachers. And even the elements of instruction in the different subjects which were oriented to the solution of practical community problems lost their demonstration value as they were presented by the teacher in the classroom in form of lectures. Since existing teachers were not trained in the new instruction concepts, the enthusiasm of the young teachers trained in the adaptation concept and its transposition disappeared in the conservative, day-to-day work in which subjects relevant to examinations predominated [8]. In some projects even more original efforts were made to transpose the adaptation theory into practice. Usually under the direction and responsibility of an engaged educationalist who dealt with curricular and organisational aspects, in situ efforts were made to find a symbiosis between western education and traditional educational forms. In the Islamic Yoruba community of Omu in the Ilorin Province in Northern Nigeria, further attempts were made in the 1930s to succeed with what Visher had failed to realise: the primary school which takes into account local socio-economic conditions and the needs of the local population. The influential community members supported this attempt, hoping that the undesired 'subversive trends' which they associated with Western education could thereby be warded off and that their traditions could be preserved. At the same time they considered this form of school to be a possibility for preparing the population for inevitable social changes [9]. At almost the same time as J. D. Clarke was experimenting in Omu, Mumford, in Malangali, Tanzania, was introducing a concept which was based even more solidly on anthropological considerations than had been recommended in the Phelps-Stokes reports. Mumford considered that the main reason for the failure of western-type education in Black Africa was that a European concept had been transferred to Africa and only then had attempts been made to adapt it to local conditions [10]. Accordingly, Mumford tried to approach the task from the opposite direction, seeking to integrate elements of tribal organisation into schooling in a traditional community in Tanzania. The school was modelled on tribal organisations, and tribal elders accompanied the boys to instruct them in tribal traditions. Clothing, buildings and furniture were of modified local design. Studies and recreations were based upon both African and European activities, with attention to local agriculture and cattle interests and local industrial potentialities [11]. Mumford's approach was the first to take the interests of those concerned into account to such an extent that it enabled them to participate in education, to share responsibility for educating children and youths, and use the new form of western education for solving community problems. Unfortunately, this interesting project never proceeded beyond the experimental stage, that is to say no further attempts were made to introduce similar approaches into communities of other cultural groups. Withdrawal of the initially granted official support to the project on the appointment of a new director for education in 1931 and intrigues pursued against Mumford by the officials of the colonial administration forced him to terminate the project after only three years [12]. It remains unclear whether this was really an attempt to develop an appropriate form of

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education for Africa which both satisfied the practical needs of the community and prepared the local inhabitants for social change without breaking with tradition [13]. A conclusive statement in this respect would in any case be inappropriate on account of the brief duration of the experiment and its dependence on the personality of the initiator, as well as because of the different nature of the aspirations and behavioural patterns in other urban or rural communities which saw in western education a vehicle for economic and political advancement and equality with the colonial masters. In this respect, however, Mbilinyi points out in a recent work that even reform attempts such as this in Malangali cannot be seen in isolation from the overall context of colonial policy. Recourse to the specificities of cultural groups in the establishment of a formal education system would promote tribalism and thereby prevent the emergence of larger political units, a method ensuring that indirect domination also be exercised via the educational field [14]. The revised view of the role of the teacher also necessitated a reorganisation of the teacher training curricula. Whereas in the majority of teacher training institutions in Black Africa certain concepts of community orientation were beginning to manifest themselves, new teacher training courses were introduced in some colonies which were fully designed for preparing the teacher for his role as the driving force in community development [15]. In pursuance of the recommendations of the second Phelps-Stokes Commission, a Jeanes teacher training institution was established in Kabete, Kenya, in 1925 with the support of American foundations. This institution, drawing on the experience gained in the southern states of the USA, was to train teachers for undertaking extension work in problems of community development in several primary schools. James Dougall, secretary of the second Phelps-Stokes Commission, was released from duty by the Church of Scotland in order to assume the directorship of the training course. One obvious solution in view of the close links with American pedagogues who wanted to transfer the experience gained with the black population in the southern USA and the education models of Hampton and Tuskegee to African conditions would have been to secure the cooperation of graduates of these colleges for work in the newly established Jeanes teacher training institutions. However, Dougall soon abandoned this idea after a visit in 1925 to the southern states, by which time the black students of the renowned colleges Hampton and Tuskegee had developed a strong political consciousness and were considered as potential troublemakers for the society dominated by white settlers in Kenya [16]. Consequently, the faculty was built up in the following years from six European experts who used the concepts of the adaptation theoreticians in both applied research and practical teacher training who carried out instruction in Swahili. The two-year training provided for Jeanes teachers incorporated all the techniques and concepts which were required for their future work in the villages. Both the teacher and his wife were trained simultaneously. Both had a plot of land to work, on which improved indigenous cultivation methods were applied. Students and teachers gained their insights into improving existing African agricultural techniques by way of observation and experiments on an experimental farm on which an African farmer cultivated half a hectare of land in the traditional manner: ... it was only experimental in the Jeanes sense of examining traditional African methods of agriculture for their value before encouraging modified western techniques [17]. The teachers, many of whom were over thirty years of age, learned to relate traditional learning contents to the African environment and implement them to improve the rural situation. Scenarios dealing with improvements in hygiene or agriculture were rehearsed and performed in the presence of community members. The wealth of traditional tribal stories, proverbs, and music was reactivated and used as a pedagogic instrument. The students were encouraged to collect such elements of African culture and preserve them for future genera-

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tions. They were introduced to black personalities who had excelled themselves in community development and agriculture [18]. The 1931 annual report of the education department in Kenya provides clear information on the type of activities carried out by the students when dealing with community problems: latrines with tops, sick cases dealt with, approaches to school and houses, wells, latrines dug, improved houses, rats killed, rat traps, clean-up days, health propaganda meetings... cooperative societies and banks, trees planted, improved grain stores, ploughs, separators, mills, rubbish and manure pits, ox carts in use, sewing machines, school libraries, schools with night classes, etc. [19]. These were precisely the fields in which the Jeanes teachers were particularly engaged in their work in the villages and which soon became their daily routine [20]. The teachers were normally less well versed in the academic subjects, no additional training having been provided during training in Kabete. The consequence was that they paid less attention to these subjects during their school inspections and applied themselves fully to the community work for which they had been trained [21]. Approximately 160 Jeanes teachers had been trained by the mid-1930s. Despite the major difficulties they faced, they performed excellent work in community development. Using the primary schools in rural areas as a basis, they sought to improve local living conditions in cooperation with local inhabitants at a time in which they were the only representatives of the community development concept [22]. After the establishment of the Jeanes institutions in Kenya, further institutions were set up in Nyasaland (Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). In 1935 the first supra-regional Jeanes Teacher Conference took place in Salisbury, on which occasion a comprehensive revision of the training content for Jeanes teachers in Kenya had to be undertaken in order to keep in line with progress in preventive medicine and agricultural extension, in which fields much better qualified counsellors had started work in rural communities. Moreover, it had meanwhile become clear that the improved training provided at other teacher training institutions had had a positive impact in the primary schools, where young teachers were by now better qualified in pedagogy than Jeanes teachers [23]. The Conference recommended a departure from the former practice of recruiting candidates for Jeanes teacher training. Professionalisation and specialisation were to be the guidelines for future work. In future, only those teachers were to be trained as Jeanes specialists who had already completed a basic teacher training course. Furthermore, training in community development was also to be provided in the training centre for those occupational groups who were essential to the development of rural areas but had previously been trained only in their particular specialism. Difficulties in the recruitment of suitable students and cuts in the allocations received caused the Jeanes training institutions gradually to become training centres for community development specialists for the various ministries [24]. The Jeanes teacher training system and their assignment to primary schools in Kenya was the nearest practical application of the Phelps-Stokes recommendation for adapted education in Black Africa. Attempts had been made for nearly 15 years to provide for improvements in rural communities and an upgrading of traditional African culture by using the primary school and its teachers. However, this concept was tolerated for only a brief period by the local population. More and more Kenyans viewed this form of community-oriented education as a second-class form of education which failed to help Africans to exercise their political rights: although the Jeanes School was successful in its early years and developed important innovations in her teacher training, the Jeanes teachers found that the African people increasingly drew a distinction between the transitory value of their teaching in relation to improving the immediate conditions of rural life, and the more permanent

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Adaptation in British Colonial Education value of an academic education, with its prospects of much greater prosperity and control of their own affairs [25].

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At the same time, the Jeanes teacher experiment in Kenya reveals that a basically progressive pedagogic principlecommunity-oriented schoolingcan also be deployed within the context of a reactionary policy as long as it contributes towards stabilising the overall system, that is to say in this case tying the Kenyan African to the land and making him available as a cheap source of labour for the white population [26]. A variant of the Jeanes training concept was tested in Northern Nigeria between 1936 and 1938. Existing teachers were trained in a 16-month advanced training course in Toro and Gombe to work as extensionists in primary schools. They were intended to assist their colleagues in orienting primary school education towards community development work. Those selected for training were primary school teachers who were already teaching, irrespective of whether or not they had had a formal training. One important criterion for admission to the courses was that the candidates had already shown an interest within their school activities for community development issues [27]. The first eight-month training phase composed of practical training in agriculture, crafts and first aid was followed by a second eightmonth training phase which provided for practical teaching work in various villages in a province. The experience gained during assignments to village communities was evaluated within the framework of short courses in the two centres and then applied in the field. The organisation of this type of advanced teacher training in community development is described below. However, this project too failed to proceed the experimental stage. It was not until the 1970s, after Nigeria's independence, that basic elements of the 'visiting teacher' training were applied in the training of 'mobile teacher trainers' within the framework of a primary education improvement project carried out at Zaria University, this time, however, without reference to the development of rural communities. The attempts described here to adapt western education concepts to African conditions generally met with only short-lived success. The pilot projects initiated by committed individuals failed to progress beyond the experimental stage and were usually abandoned after only a few years as soon as support from the colonial administration failed to be forthcoming or the initiator left the project. The transposition of new ideas into educational practice in order to solve urgent problems (to prevent rural exodus to the cities, for example) normally proved to be a more difficult and more costly exercise than had been expected and could be afforded. Moreover, the colonial administration had an interest in ensuring that the political status quo remained unaltered, an undertaking in which the education system for Black Africans had a corresponding role to play. The most important reasons for the failure of the attempts to orient western education models to Black African conditions can be summarised as follows (see also Table I). (1) The teachers working in the primary schools were overtaxed by the exacting demands of the adaptation concept. (2) They were neither trained for nor given support by other community institutions in their additional community development activities. (3) The environment-oriented and work-oriented reformed curricula called for a degree of flexibility, creativity, and adaptability which made teachers who were used to classroom instruction on the basis of textbooks feel insecure. (4) The follow-up costs connected with the reforms were underestimated; these included: advanced training courses for existing teachers; corresponding teaching materials and textbooks; higher operational costs on account of qualified teaching staff; improved school inspection;

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TABLE I Advanced Training Courses for 'Visiting Teachers' in Northern Nigeria from 1936 to 1938 Time First to eighth month Contents Practical training in agriculture (mixed farming; growing of vegetables in dry period, etc., health (hygiene, first aid, etc.) handicrafts (carpentry and masonry) Theoretical instruction in organisation of instruction/school school administration Preparation for practical work in the provinces Ninth to sixteenth month instruction in primary schools courses for adults consultancy in establishing parents committees in the school communities Place of learning

j Training centres | j (Tore and | Gombe)

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Short-term courses: continuous evaluation of practical work

Communities in the home provinces of the teachers

Source: BUDE, U. Gemeinde-orientierte Primarschulen als Faktor landlicher Entwicklung in SchwarzafrikaMoglichkeiten und Grenzen eines Reformkonzepts (Community-Oriented Primary Schools and Rural Development in Black Africa: Prospects and Limitations of a Reform Concept), (Institut fur Afrikakunde, Hamburg), forthcoming 1983. costs incurred in connection with introducing the reforms throughout the entire school system. (5) Reforms were introduced only in parts of the education system, without solving structural problems (e.g. the various parallel systems for various parts of the population were retained). (6) There were no curriculum development techniques to transpose reform concepts and their implications into learning goals, in particular for realising active pupil-centred learning. (7) The fact that reform attempts were dependent on individuals ('expatriate pushers') proved to have a negative effect with respect to long-term impact [28]. (8) The reforms were generally rejected by the population groups concerned. The greatest obstacle to achieving a permanent impact in using the primary school for the development of rural areas concerned the experiences which the population had previously gained with schooling and the expectations they placed on school attendance. During the

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colonial period, as is still the case today, school attendance is the equivalent of purchasing a better material future which, where possible, should not be one in small-scale agriculture. The importance of a sound training in the colonial language and the so-called academic subjects was demonstrated daily to the Black Africans in their contact with the colonial representatives: Reading and writing were seen as the keys to success, not gardening, or to use its later euphemistic name, 'rural science', and still less 'educating the African along his own lines' [29]. All well-intentioned attempts made by non-Africans to replace the individual promotion of Black Africans, which was possible in a Western-oriented education system, by a gradual improvement of the living conditions of the broad population in rural areas by means of an adapted education concept ignored the real needs of Africans after their political emancipation. By failing to take into account these African needs structures and to integrate Africans into the discussion on and realisation of educational reforms, European-American paternalism, which ultimately regarded Africans as immature people having no understanding of the 'well-meant' plans of their 'protectors', was doomed to failure. As Dougall, the first principal of the Jeanes school in Kenya said: "The fact remains that the African in many cases does not want what we think is best for him" [30]. Unfortunately, a similar paternalistic attitude can still be observed among many foreign experts working to establish new education systems in newly independent African states [31]. A change in this respect is now beginning to take place, perhaps as result of the exemplary work of the African Curriculum Organisation (ACO) [32]. (2) CRITICISM OF 'ADAPTED' EDUCATION AND REJECTION BY THOSE CONCERNED So far I have sought to describe the development of an education theory claiming to have developed an education system for the Black African population which, based on the didactic principles of a threefold orientation towards the environment, the community and practical work, was tailored to meet the special needs of Africans and provide them with access to modern society without destroying their cultural identity. The experiences of American philanthropists with the education of liberated Negro slaves in the southern states of the USA conjoined with the educational reform attempts made by British colonial officers within the framework of their political domination model of 'indirect rule' for the administration of the colonies and the attempts made by American and British missionary societies to find the 'proper' form of education for their newly won apostles. The impact of these joint endeavours were reflected in the reports of the Phelps Stokes Commissions on the situation of education in Black Africa in the years 1920 to 1924 and the consequent experiments undertaken to test the concepts of an adapted education in isolated or comprehensive projects. Whereas emphasis was placed earlier on the system-immanent causes for the failure of the attempts made to test and introduce an adapted education for Black Africans, attention will now be given to the reactions and criticism which this education concept encountered and which finally prevented its success in the implementation. Few educators would deny the need to develop curriculums based upon the practical problems of everyday life and given in a meaningful context. Since the time of the Phelps-Stokes reports there has been a steady movement to develop appropriate curriculums and textbooks in African schools, and there can be no doubt that this movement does derive in part from the efforts of these earlier bodies [33]. The adaptation of traditional school subjects within the framework of a so-called general education was thus a less controversial point. Indeed, it proved to be an urgent necessity: pedagogic considerations were complemented during and after World War II by increasingly

TABLE II Adapted education projects in Black Africa, 1925-1940

Structure Reasons for project abandonment

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Project evaluation

Project goals

Place/ Country

Objective

Body responsible

Initiator

Scope

Primary school reform

Ghana/ Nigeria/ Tanganyika Omu, Nigeria Malangali Tanganyika Tanganyika

Curriculum adaptation Curriculum adaptation Broadening of traditional education School establishment via self-help Curriculum adaptation Curriculum adaptation

Colonial administration Colonial administration Colonial administration Local community Colonial administration Colonial administration/ American foundations

Education Department Clarke Mumford

National + Local Local + +

Adapted education in Moslem society Adapted education in 'tribal' society Establishment of primary schools outside the state system (Native Schools) Establishment of instruction by peripatetic teachers (visiting teachers) Community development via Jeanes teachers

Native Authorities Education Department PhelpsStokes Commission

National

Toro and Gombe\ Nigeria Kabete, Kenya

Regional

Regional

Source: BUDE, U. Gemeinde-orientierte Primarschulen als Faktor landlicher Entwicklung in SchwarzafrikaMoglichkeiten und Grenzen eines Reformkonzepts (Community-Oriented Primary Schools and Rural Development in Black Africa: Prospects and Limitations of a Reform Concept), (Institut fur Afrikakunde, Hamburg), forthcoming 1983.

to

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important political considerations in favour of using the primary school to prepare children for a concept of national unity which was to be superimposed on the unity of the cultural group. One example in this respect is the history and geography manual for teachers which was developed by T. R. Batten in 1933 for Nigerian primary school teachers. In both subjects, the local community was taken as the point of departure for learning, with a comparative approach to other areas following. Active learning methods were to encourage the pupils to collect factual information and recollections on the history of the community and the origin of its members [34]. A more controversial issue was the claim made by the adaptation concept to the effect that Black Africans needed a form of education which departed from the western education models and corresponded with their own particular 'needs'. However, the nature of these needs was not defined by those concerned but by experts who believed that they were better able to undertake such a task. In those instances when Africans were asked for their opinions (as, for example, during the compilation of the Phelps-Stokes reports) and these failed to coincide with those of the experts, this was considered to be a confirmation of the fact that the school had to ensure that 'false needs' be eradicated (for example, the wish for the same type of education as was provided in the metropoles). One fundamental point which should be made here is that the role of the school was overestimated in the adaptation concept. It was hoped and believed that traditional behaviour patterns which had developed over long periods of time could be changed by the school, despite the fact that the majority of Black Africans lay beyond its reach. Indifference to or rejection of manual labour being attributed to the purely academic knowledge provided in most schools, it was believed that concentration on practical subjects such as agriculture and the crafts could change the attitude of the African in this respect. The obvious economic considerations underlying this negative attitude were overlooked, just as was the general abuse of the practical work carried out in schools, which itself served to strengthen the African's attitude of rejection. School attendance was also believed to foster an attitude which would render the African more open-minded towards the innovations and changes taking place in his life. However, for the experts, open-minded and modern were terms synonymous with readiness to produce for an anonymous market, to sell one's labour, to share in the achievements of western civilisation, and to accept the premises of Christian religions. At the same time, however, the African's own cultural identity was to be maintained, with the school again playing a contributory role by passing on knowledge of the most valuable elements of traditional society. The school, an institution imported from western cultures, was thus expected to assume responsibilities which it had never assumed in Europe or America: Schools in advanced societies had, in general, been conservative social institutions, reflecting society and remoulding themselves somewhat belatedly in response to social pressures [35]. The education model imported from the USA did not provide for any fundamental political emancipation of the pupils. It proceeded along the lines of a harmonious and conflict-free development of society. The function of education was restricted to bringing about an improvement in the material situation of the black population in the southern states of the USA and was never conceptualised for the purpose of placing the black population on an equal political footing with the white population. Potential societal conflicts were to be defused by means of curricular manipulation. Kenneth King has clearly shown that Jesse Jones, the spiritual father of the adaptation theory, feared nothing more than the political activation of the black population which he hoped to 'immunise' by means of his education concept [36]. It is thus not surprising that the British colonial authorities took up this concept and adopted it as official education policy, and that furthermore they were supported in so doing by both the missionary societies and the white settlers in South and East Africa. In the popular concept of

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'adapted education', everyone who believed that education for Black Africans in the colonies had to be different from that provided for Europeans found that which he had long hoped for. Education concepts such as that introduced by Mumford in Tanganyika to combine traditional structures with western education forms was classified as a form of "adapted" education just as the almost openly racist education policy pursued by the white settlers in Kenya [37]. The indiscriminate transfer of this education model to the African context led to the development of an education system which, although repeatedly claiming to be tailored to African societal structures, in fact proceeded on the basis of an image of the African society which failed to be the image of reality. By 1929 Murray had already pointed out the marked differences between the black communities in the southern states of the USA and communities in Black Africa. He emphasised that the blacks in the USA were not organised as the Africans in the rural areas of Black Africa on a tribal or clan basis with religious-mythical ties to the land and their ancestors. Furthermore, historical developments had ensured that the blacks in the USA meanwhile shared one language and one material culture with the white population. The US black was therefore more comparable with the Black African who had migrated to the city than with his counterpart living in a rural area and still closely bound by African traditions [38]. The same education was prescribed for all the populations of Black Africa, irrespective of their differences and without attention being paid to their divergent historical contexts and their divergent aspirations [39]. The elements of an adaptation concept which might have been useful in areas of Africa which had had little contact with colonialism would have had virtually no prospect of success in areas which had had long contact with the whites and had consequently undergone changes in social structure. The adaptation theory viewed the African society as a static unit which was virtually incapable of adapting itself to changed external circumstances [40], fully ignoring in this respect the societal change processes which were already taking place in Africa. To mention but a few of these: the demonstration effect of the life-style pursued by the representatives of the colonial powers and its impact; the increasing number of Africans abandoning subsistence agriculture in favour of exportoriented cultivation; increasing contact with the material and nonmaterial products of the colonial powers; the increasing rural exodus; the first signs of status redistribution as a result of the emergence of an elite which had been to secure its position on the basis of success in the western education system [41]. Idealisation of traditional rural life and the attempt to improve rural conditions on the strength of education were in fact not suitable instruments for taking into account the actual conditions prevailing in Africa. Referring to Nigeria, Abernethy summarises the problem as follows. In an environment changing more rapidly than the colonial rulers themselves realised, the effect of their educational reforms would have been to train the child to make his way in a society that was becoming outmoded rather than to prepare him for a future society that was bound to be even less traditional than the Nigeria of the 1920s [42]. The strongest rejection of the adaptation concept was forthcoming from those circles which had an interest in the political emancipation of the blacks in both the USA and in Africa, and who hoped that this could be achieved by means of an academic training for a sufficient number of well qualified leaders who could then face the whites on an equal footing. Leaders of the American blacks such as DuBois criticised the efforts being made to

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introduce a special education for Black Africans as an attempt to secure white influence over Africa for ever [43]. Tying down Africans by means of a primarily agricultural and craft education was viewed not as a means of improving the material situation in rural areas but as the expression of a racist prejudice on the part of the whites towards the blacks. Azikiwe records in this respect: "The theoretical basis favouring an education in the crafts and in agriculture for the African is wrong. It assumes that the African is better suited to craft and agricultural work, an assumption which can hardly be correct" [44]. Many Africans recognised the ideological element in the adaptation theory and feared that they would receive a second-class education which would further consolidate their dependence on and their exploitation by the white colonial masters [45]. That these fears were justified emerges most clearly from the events in Kenya, where white settlers had supported the introduction of adapted education with the argument that the Africans were less intelligent than the whites and had contended that the practical components of this education represented the only means of bringing the blacks up to a higher development level [46]. The African felt himself challenged to prove that his race was capable of equal intellectual performance provided that this race enjoyed a comparable education [47]. Accordingly, any deviation from the standard education of the western type for the population of Black Africa was regarded as a limitation of the potential intellectual development possibilities of the African child [48]. That which those concerned really wanted had little in common with the concepts of the adaptation theory, as can be seen from the following document written in 1931 with reference to Uganda. What we want is general education, as it is known. We say that we should be given education which is not set aside particularly for us, because the tendency has always been that ways should be found to discover a suitable system of education for the Africans... we should be given the standard course of education which would enable those can to come and join universities or certain colleges in this country [49]. Thus the efforts made by the missions and the colonial administration to transpose the principles of an adapted education into practice encountered resistance and even open rejection. In Ghana both the traditional chiefs and the local western-educated intelligentsia spoke out against Africanisation [50]. In Kenya, the Kikuyus established schools outside the existing system in order to provide instruction on the basis of an English-type academic curriculum. In southern Nigeria the population ignored official reform experiments and induced the missions to retain the traditional eight-year school attendance period and a curriculum based on academic subjects by providing additional support for the maintenance of their primary schools [51]. Taking a more realistic view than the theoreticians of adapted education for Black Africa, the local population saw the limits of the influence which the primary school could exert on the development of rural areas. Moreover, it was feared that the additional community development duties which were to be undertaken by the school would prevent the latter from satisfactorily fulfilling its essential task of providing instruction in the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. To make men intelligent, the school has again but one way, and that is, first and last, to teach them to read, write and count. And if the school fails to do that, and tries beyond that to do something for which a school is not adapted, it not only fails in its own function, but it fails in all other attempted functions. Because no school as such can organise industry, or settle the matter of wage and income, can found homes or furnish parents, can establish justice or make a civilised world [52]. Fulfilment of this basic task, however, was regarded by the parents as being the most important activity of the school since mastery of the basic academic skills was the first step

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towards finding access to the more advanced echelons of the academic education system which alone provided prospects of material advancement and political equality. Any differentiation in the education system in the African colonies without provision for equality among all population groups would have implied the perpetuation of inferiority for the blacks, as Murray had already pointed out in 1929 [53]. A utilitarian education concept such as that of adapted education without an attempt to promote political responsibility and individual selfdetermination as regulators of societal claims against the individual leads ultimately to increased dependence and increased exploitation [54]. An essentially progressive pedagogic concept becomes an instrument of a restrictive education policy if the emancipation criterion is disregarded. NOTES AND REFERENCES
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[1] PEETS, H. (1964) Die Rolle des Erziehungswesens in der englischen Kolonialpolitik in Nigeria (The Role of the Educational System in British Colonial Policy in Nigeria), in: WEILER, H. N . (Ed.), Erziehung und Politik in Nigeria (Education and Politics in Nigeria) (Freiburg), pp. 81-112, p. 90. [2] THOMPSON, A. R. (1968) Ideas underlying British Education Policy in Tanganyika, in: RESNICK, J. N. (Ed.), Tanzania: Revolution by Education (Arusha/Tanzania), pp. 15-32, p. 18. [3] Ibid., p. 21. [4] WANDIRA, A. (1972) Early Missionary Education in UgandaA Study of Purpose in Missionary Education (Department of Education, Makarere University, Kampala/Uganda), p. 217; for the French and Portuguese colonies see AUTRA, R. (1956) Historique de l'enseignement en A.O.F., in: Presence Africaine, No. 6/1956, pp. 69-86, and de SOUSA FERREIRA, E. (1974), Portuguese Colonialism in Africa: The end of an era. The effects of Portuguese colonialism on education, science, culture and information (The Unesco Press, Paris).
[5] For Tanzania see THOMPSON, A. R., op. cit., p. 27.

[6] [7] [8] [9]

[10]

ABERNETHY, D. B. (1969) The Political Dilemma of Popular Education. An African Case (Stanford), p. 94. WILSON, J. (1966) Education and Changing West African Culture (London), pp. 34/35. Ibid., p. 37. CLARKE, J. D. (1937) Omu: An African Experiment in Education (London), p. 7.
Cf. THOMPSON, A. R. op. cit.

[11] SINCLAIR, M. E. (1976) Education, Relevance and the Community. A first look at the history of attempts to introduce productive work into the primary school curriculum, in: KING, K. (Ed.), Education and Community in Africa (Edinburgh), pp. 45-80, p. 74. [12] LEWIS, L. J. (1954) Educational policy and practice in British tropical areas (London), p. 59.
[13] Cf. THOMPSON, op. cit.

[14] MBILINYI, M. L. (1979) History of Formal Schooling in Tanzania, in: HINZEN, H./HUNDSDORFER, V. H. (Ed.), The Tanzanian ExperienceEducation for Liberation and Development (Unesco Institute for Education, Hamburg), pp. 76-87. [15] Cf. THOMPSON, A. R. (1976) Historical survey of the role of the churches in education from pie-colonial days to post-independence, in: GOTTNEID, A. J. (Ed.), Church and Education in Tanzania (Nairobi), pp. 3-130, p. 31. [16] KING, K. J. (1971) Pan-Africanism and Education. A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa (Oxford), p. 154. [17] Ibid., p. 162. [18] Ibid., pp. 164/165. [19] EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (1931) Annual Report (Nairobi), p. 76.
[20] [21] [23] Cf. KING, K. J., op. cit., p. 157. Cf. SINCLAIR, M. E., op. cit., p. 72. Cf. KING, K. J., op. cit., p. 174.

[22] Ibid. [24] Ibid., p. 175. [25] ANDERSON, J. (1975) The Struggle for the School. The interaction of Missionary, Colonial Government and Nationalist enterprise in the development of formal education in Kenya (London/Nairobi, 2nd edition), p. 21. [26] SHEFFIELD, J. R. (1973) Education in Kenya: An Historical Study (Teachers College, Columbia University), p. 18. [27] LEWIS, L. J. (1965) Society, Schools & Progress in Nigeria (Oxford), p. 69. [28] SINCLAIR, M. E., op. cit., pp. 64/65, quotes the example of the British colonial officer Patrick who tried to implement community- and environment-oriented curricula in the primary schools of Ceylon during 1931 to 1943. These reforms, however, were abandoned after the officer's transfer to Trinidad.
[29] ANDERSON, J., ibid.

[30] DOUGALL, J. W. C. (1928) Training Visiting Teachers for African Village Schools, in: Southern Workman, ivii, Oct. 1928, pp. 403-414; quoted by KING, K. J., op. cit., p. 185.

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[31] The rise and fall of an educational reform project (reform of primary education in the francophone provinces of the United Republic of Cameroon) and the dominating role of the former chief technical advisor is analysed by BUDE, U./ILLY, H. F./KORDES, H. (1973) Primarschulreform in Kamerun (1973). Entscheidungsproze, Curriculumentwicklung, Systemorganisation (Reform of primary education in Cameroon. Decision making process, Curriculum development, System organization) Study carried out on behalf of the Ministry of EconomicCooperation (BMZ), Bonn (Mnster). [32] BUDE, U. (1983) Curriculum Development in Africa (2nd edition, Bonn). [33] FOSTER, P. (1965) Education and Social Change in Ghana (London), p. 163. [34] BATTEN, T. R. (1944) The Teachers' History and Geography Handbook (Lagos, 5th edition). [35] THOMPSON, A. R., Ideas underlying..., op. cit., p. 20.
[36] Cf. KING, K. J., op. cit., p. 258.

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[37] SHEFFIELD, J. R., op. cit., p. 23, quotes the annual report of the Kenyan education authorities from 1926: "Just as handwork has been found useful in the training of mentally defective children, so the most useful training which the African can receive in his present condition is continued contact with material processes". [38] MURRAY, A. V. (1938) The School in the Bush. A Critical Study of the Theory and Practice of Native Education in Africa (London, 2nd ed. reprinted 1967), p. 308. [39] See also BREMBECK, C. S./HOVEY, R. L. (1972) Educational Programmes in Rural Areas (Unesco Working Paper, Paris).
[40] Cf. ABERNETHY, op. cit., p. 90.

[41] LLOYD, P. C. (1975) Africa in Social Change (Harmondsworth/Middlesex/England, rev. ed.).

[42] ABERNETHY, ibid.

[43] DUBOIS, W. E. B. (1926) Education in Africaa review of the recommendations of the African education committee, in: The Crisis, XXXII, No. 2, June, pp. 86-89, p. 88. [44] AZIKIWE, B. N. (1934) How shall we educate the African? in: Journal of the African Society. No. 33, pp. 143-151, p. 146. [45] FAJANA, A. (1975) Lugard's Educational Policy in Nigeria: 1912-18, in: West African Journal of Education. Vol. XIX, No. 2, June, pp. 179-197, pp. 184/185.
[46] [47] Cf. ANDERSON, J., op. cit., p. 61. Cf. WANDIRA, A., op. cit., p. 309.

[48] See e.g. KALIBALA, E. B., who characterised the concept of adaptation as an 'empty theory', "It makes no provision for the development of the potential possibilities of the child... 'Native Education' is a term frequently used to mean a selected body of ideas suitable to the African mentality, and arranged without regard to the development of the African as a whole person", KALIBALA, E. B. (1934) Education for the Villages in Uganda, East Africa (M.A. Thesis, Teachers College, Columbia/USA), p. 32. [49] Statement of Seruwano Kulubya, Evidence to the Joint Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, Vol. 2, H.M.S.O. 1931, p. 565, quoted by WANDIRA, A., op. cit., p. 308.
[50] . Cf. FOSTER, P., op. cit., p. 167.

[51] For Kenya see ANDERSON, J., op. cit., p. 115; for Nigeria see ABERNETHY, D. B., op. cit., p. 104.

[52] DUBOIS W. E. B. (1935) Curriculum Revision, address to Georgia State Teachers Convention, 12 Apr.; quoted by
[53] KING, K. J., op. cit., p. 257. Cf. MURRAY, A. V., op. cit., p. 309.

[54] BLANKERTZ, H. (1963) Berufsbildung und Utilitarismus (Vocational Education and Utilitarism) (Dsseldorf), p. 115.