Development of Education in the Caribbean

The education system in the Caribbean evolved from a colonial historical legacy which was predicated on privilege. Education served as a primary device for social selection and class stratification. With the attainment of independence and the growth of nationalism, mass education became a socio-political priority.

Pre-Emancipation
Education on the colonies was very limited and available to the whites. Planters sent their children abroad or had tutors educating their children. The missionaries on arrival to the colonies attempted to educate the slaves with the ability to read and write.

Post Emancipation
The black population saw education as an instrument by which their children could achieve economic and social advancement in society. As a result, there was great demand for education.

There were difficulties for most of the freed persons to gain education, these were: The decline in the economic prosperity of the sugar industry. Thus the local legislatures were unable to provide funds to support an expansion of education. The sugar planters remained the dominant economic group. They therefore resisted any increase in opportunities for upward mobility among the black population.

 Political power was still in the hand of the sugar planters. As a result educational policies and programmes that were later developed reflected the interest of the planter class. The plural nature of the societies in the West Indies posed many difficulties and challenges for their educational systems. Education was provided by various denominational groups instead of the state and this was a problem for a common educational system to emerge.