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BRITISH COLONIAL LANGUAGE AND EXAMINATION POLICIES IN WEST AFRICA BEFORE THE SECOND WORLD
WAR
BORSALI Fewzi (Université d’Adrar)
It is generally admitted that colonial domination and cultural alienation were initially and partly facilitated by missionary enterprise and educational activities in West Africa. The scramble for conversion affected the form of education, which consisted in the provision of western education with the single –minded view to transform traditional ways of life. In 1841 Madden reported that education was a transplantation of English education for religious ends. Eighty years later, the Phelps-Stoke Commission reported clearly that the wholesale transfer of the educational conventions of Europe and America has certainly not been an act of wisdom. “The too frequent charges of the failure of native education are traceable to the lack of educational adaptation to native life.”(1) And still before the Second World War, the Africans suffered from this policy of indifference towards the education of their citizens despite the official declarations of colonial welfare and development. The question is to examine the different major factors, which prevented colonial officials and
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Africans from reviewing definitely the question of language and examination policies.
Though contact with Europeans dates back to the 15th century, English colonial establishment started by the beginning of the 19th century: 1808 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, 1821 in the Fanti area of the Gold Coast, and 1850 in Lagos, Nigeria. The other areas of the hinterland became under control during the last quarter of the 19th century.
Such official or colonial involvement was preceded by missionary enterprise, notably conversion and education.
In fact, preliminary efforts at education were begun in the 18th century but effective missionary educational work started in 1828 by Basel Mission, 1835 by the Wesleyans followed by the Anglicans and Roman Catholics.
Education was entirely in their hands in the 19th century though the colonial government made some contributions to their work, which progressed either dependently or independently of the collaboration with Africans or colonial officials.
By the mid 19th century already, official concern for the education of the natives was expressed in Madden‟s report of 1840, which could be regarded as the first official general statement of British colonial education policy. The report recommended the inculcation of the principle of Christianity and the knowledge of English as an agent of civilization (2). Before the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, education ordinances were enacted, making
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provision for government control over missionary schools through financial assistance rather than the establishment of government schools.
The lack of government involvement or concern was due to two reasons namely the philosophy of English education in England that is initial absence of state control, and the raison-d„etre of colonial domination (3).
However some progress towards government responsibility started to be real during the second decade of the 20th century as a result of both an increasing African demand for education and urgency expressed by some missionary groups in London, together with the recommendations of the Phelps-Stoke Commission of 1920 within the framework of postwar reconstruction of new relations.
Following the First World War the Colonial Office decided to organize a conference at which the Christian Missionary Society suggested the establishment of a permanent education committee at the level of the Colonial Office. L.S.Amery, then Colonial Secretary (1924-1929), agreed to create such a body, which would assist him in advancing the progress of education in the Tropical African Dependencies. That committee was extended to the other colonies by 1929.
The membership of the first Colonial Education Committee included two officials, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, and the Assistant Under-Secretary, two representatives of missionaries bodies, the Christian
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Missionary Society and the Roman Catholic Mission;
four members in their personal capacity, a secretary, and all colonial governors of the African dependencies as ex- officio, while in the United Kingdom. The members were to be appointed for a three-year period.
It is clear that the membership of this Committee, which was enlarged by 1929 so as to include the representation of the other colonies, was continually changing. The analysis of this membership between its inception and 1940 shows that more than 50% comprised Oxbridge educated members, together with members with colonial experience (4)
The Colonial Education Committee had a Textbook sub- committee appointed in December 1926 with the aim to create or to establish a Bureau of Information and Advice concerning English textbooks, which could be used in the African colonies.
The educational doctrine adopted by the Committee was one “adopted to the mentality, aptitude, occupations, traditions of the various people…this education would emphasize the study and use of the vernacular (5). But educational adaptation proved somewhat different to achieve because of both the lack of research to be carried out in the field and the reluctance of the examining bodies to adapt their examinations to suit local educational objectives. This was not without any impact on curriculum, language and scholarship.
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Before the establishment of the Advisory Education Committee a few important institutions discussed the importance of the vernacular. The report of the Calcutta University Commission of 1919 states: “ for the educated Indian of today, the master key is English, English is then indispensable to the higher education of India at this time. But on the other hand, the mother tongue is of primary importance…through the mother tongue the infant learns to name the things it sees and feels…it is the mother tongue, which gives to the adult mind the relief and illumination of utterance. Hence in all education the primary place should be given to training in the exact and free use of the mother tongue.”(6)
The importance of the vernaculars was also stressed by Dr Westermann, (died in 1954), one of the foremost authorities on African languages. According to him language and mental life “are so closely connected that any educational work which doesn‟t take into consideration the inseparable unity between African languages and African thinking is based on false principles and must lead to an alienation of the individual.”(7)
As to the Phelps-Stoke Commission, which visited Africa after the First World War, they were of opinion that the comparative merits of several dialects may take years of scientific study. The Imperial Conference held in London in 1923 considered the vernacular as the language best
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known and understood, the most effective medium of instruction in the preliminary stages of school education.(8)
Two years after its establishment in 1923, the Colonial Office Advisory Education Committee issued a White Paper, which aims at counteracting the disintegrating effects, which resulted from the divorce of modern education and African culture. Though the Committee underlined the importance of the vernaculars, they were confronted with three main difficulties. The first concerned the existence of a large variety of local languages and dialects; the second stressed the lack of trained teachers in a multiplicity of languages whereas the third was related to the difficulty of having textbooks and literature in the different vernaculars.
Given these difficulties the Education Committee felt that it would be impossible to secure the publication of textbooks in a great number of native languages for linguistic and financial reasons. The reason for that was that that believed that some of the languages and dialects were not sufficiently rich for this purpose (9). However one can reject the assumption of the relative poverty of a language on the basis that this assumption may derive either from the lexicographers‟ ignorance of the languages they are studying or from the poverty of their own language.
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It should be remembered that the use of the vernaculars had already been carried by missionaries in the 19th century mainly for religious purposes. German missionaries were initially the instigators for the study of the vernaculars and the German school effectively dominated the linguistic field under the leadership of Carl Meinhoff (died 1944) and Dr Westermann (died 1954) for Bantu and Sudanic-guinean languages respectively.
Actually the Committee were aware of the importance of the use of vernaculars and they noted that some of them were already functional for example Yoruba, Efik, Ibo, Hausa, Kanuri, Fulani, Nupe and Munshi for Nigeria;
Akan, Fanti, Ga and Ewe in the Gold Coast, Mende and Temne in Sierra Leone. Such vernaculars comprised the relatively large ethnic groups in the British West African colonies (except the Gambia).
In 1927 the Education Committee issued a memo, which stressed the use of the vernacular in the first stages of elementary education. The members of the Education Committee suggested that a European teacher should have a reasonably good knowledge of one vernacular to enable him to teach in a subjected subject.
Since the Education Committee felt that the vernacular should be used in the elementary stages of school education, one wonders whether this was to continue in the post-elementary level. There is no doubt that as a result of contact with European merchants and
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missionaries the tendency of Africans was to learn English as a means to better position in society. In fact Colonial officials were of opinion that the development of African colonies would require a wider diffusion of English.
For the Committee the fact that Africans sent their children to England for better training was a proof of the necessity of introducing English and any attempt to ignore such a motivation might simply imply official refusal for progress in the colonies. The Committee saw the use of English as response to any African demand rather than the result of British domination. They also believed that English would be economically necessary and culturally desirable.
The 1927 Colonial education Committee were certain that production in vernacular literature might not be easy to achieve in the near future. However some efforts had been undertaken to meet such requirements; in fact some vernacular Literature Bureaus were established in West Africa. This didn‟t contribute to change the official mind as to the importance and use of the vernaculars. Dr Shurrock of the Education Committee reported that London University didn‟t believe in the usefulness of native languages in the examinations (10). Effectively, the scramble for the examination market and indifference of the examining bodies towards native cultural development constituted an obstacle to educational
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adaptation. The latter could be real because pupils were usually prepared to English examinations.
The Colonial Office and Examinations Bodies
The efforts in the direction of educational adaptation can be traced back to the setting up of a Textbook Subcommittee in 1926. It included the following the members: Major Church, Pr Nun, Miss Whitelaw, H.Vischer, and H.Newbolt. By 1939 the members were:
E.Burney, Major Church, Clarke, Huxley, Spens and Makinnen. Another institution, which played an important part in this kind of educational and cultural adaptation was the Institute of African Language and Cultures under the chairmanship of F. Lugard, former Governor General of Nigeria. He worked in collaboration with Dr Westerman of Berlin and Prof Labouret of Paris and Hans Vischer as Secretary. By 1928 the Institute reported that many books were neither adapted to the life and minds of the people whom they were intended to teach, nor did they meet the requirements of Western education (11).
The curriculum of colonial education was actually influenced to a large extent by external examinations, which were beyond the prerogatives of the Colonial education Committee. Such examinations included school certificate examinations and matriculation. In fact before 1936 most of the school certificate examinations were under the monopoly of Cambridge and Oxford
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Examination Syndicates. Each colony made its o arrangements with the examining bodies without referring or counseling the Secretary of State.
However such a situation was to change as a result of London University‟s desire to extend its examinations to colonial dependencies in addition to its existing external degrees. The Colonial Education Committee felt it necessary for the School Examination Boards of Oxford and Cambridge and London to meet and discuss the matter. The Committee subsequently appointed a subcommittee to consider such a question in 1935.This subcommittee was composed of Mr. Sommerville, (chairman), Prof Coupland, Dr Esdaile, Mrs. Mann, Mayhew, Pickthrorn, Dr Sibly and Mr. Vaughan (12).
The Subcommittee discussed the different approaches of this question of examinations. First, it was proposed that the Secretary of State should consult the Colonial Governors as to their position vis a vis London University school examinations. Secondly, it suggested that the Secretary of State should get in touch with the School Examination Council with a view to adopting their examinations to the local needs in the colonial dependencies. Thirdly, the Subcommittee recommended to the Colonial Office to invite all examining bodies for a joint conference. The last proposal made by the Subcommittee to the Colonial Office was that the situation might be left as it stood.
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The Committee and Sommerville believed that it would be wasteful and unnecessary to have the examining bodies compete; Pickthorn added that it would be undesirable to do anything to encourage the multiplicity of examining bodies (13). The Conference of 1936 discussed two main points: the establishment of a joint advisory board of the examining bodies, and the steps the Secretary of State should take in case London University was to begin school examinations in the colonies.
Mr. Burney remarked that there were only a little over 6000 candidates annually and the examining bodies knew that their examinations were not suitable to local conditions. The major motive was financial. Pickthorn of Cambridge reported that his university sets its maximum profits at £2000 from the conduct of examinations while London didn‟t seem to have defined any limit to its profits (14). In the early 1940s the situation as regards examination policy didn‟t change, the Colonial Office had neither control nor authority over English university bodies.
The negative consequences of the external examinations were not inherent in the fact of their being external, but in the character of the examination itself. The “Made in England” became the hallmark for certificates and degrees to be taken by Africans for the sake of getting a better job in the colonial government services.
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The inadaptability of the external examinations to local requirements could reflect the degree of domination of English academic life and that of the incapability of British experts to conceive appropriate curricula and examinations for their colonial people. The scramble for the indifference and inability of the examining bodies towards native cultural development constituted an important obstacle to educational adaptation. It would be naïve to believe in the possibility of this under colonial rule when most of the agents were either Europeans or Africans using western values as a cadre of reference.
Africans were likely to wait until a strong body of educated Africans, committed to the welfare, progress and freedom of their race could be constituted that a cultural renaissance and political freedom would become a possibility.
Notes
1.Colonial Report, Sierra Leone, 1922, p 24.
2.Foster, P » Education and Social change in Ghana. » p.15
3.Borsali F,” Colonial Policy Towards Primary and Secondary Education in the Gold Coast 1920-1940”
Research Lab, Oran University 1999.
4.Borsali, F “ British Advisory Institutions on Colonial Education 1923-1952.” OPU, 1986, p18-19
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5.Cmd 2374, Memo submitted by the Secretary of State by the Advisory Committee on Native Education in British Tropical Dependencies, 1925.
6.Calcutta University Commission Report, part I, pp244- 5, sections: 86-7.
7.CO 323, African No 1110, 1927,p.5.
8.ibid, p.4
9.CO 323, African No 1110, 1927 “Memo on the Place of the Vernacular in Native Education ”
10.CO 323/1166/90032/8/1932, A.C.E.C meeting 2/4/1932, London University Matriculation/ Position of Special Languages.
11. The Council of the International Institute “ Memo on Textbooks for African Schools”, Africa, Vol. I, 1928.
12.CO 885/41, meeting 31.3.1935 13.CO 885/41 meeting 23.1.1936
14.CO 885/41 meeting by Pickthorn 24.1.1936
