The Phelps-Stokes Fund was established in 1911 by a bequest of Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes, a New

York philanthropist. The fund was set up principally for the education of blacks in Africa and in the United
States. Dr. Anson Phillips Stokes, one of the trustees of the fund, chaired its educational committee, while
Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones served as the educational director of the fund. The latter had formerly served on the U.
S. Bureau of Education in Washington, D. C., where he was involved in the production of two volumes on
the education of blacks in 1917. He later served at the Hampton Institute, dubbed “the most successful institute
for Negro education in the world,” as director of its research institute.

Through the activities of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, the education of American blacks came to be used as
a blueprint for the education of blacks in Africa. In this regard, the educational experiments undertaken at
the black institutions of Hampton and Tuskegee served as an example of an “appropriate” education for
colonial Africans. The Southern industrial and agricultural institutions of Hampton and Tuskegee were
originally set up as a compromise to the Southern labor problem following the emancipation of slaves.
Industrial education became the cornerstone of the education system that was offered to the freed slaves, which
aimed at prevention of racial conflict. The rural educational applications of the American black South were
extended within America by such educational agencies as the General Education Board, the Jeanes and
Slater Funds, and the United States Department of Agriculture. They were extended to the African soil
primarily by the Phelps-Stokes Education Fund. Thus, the Phelps-Stokes education commissions were
influenced by the education principles that Samuel Chapman Armstrong had developed at Hampton, and those
of Booker T. Washington and Principal Mouton at Tuskegee.

The membership of the Phelps-Stokes Education Commissions attested to the cooperation of

colonial governments and missionary societies in America and Europe. Members included Dr. Henry Stanley
Hollenbeck, who had served as a missionary in Angola, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilkie of the Church of
Scotland Mission in Calabar, Nigeria, and Leo Ray, an accountant and specialist in industrial education. Ray
had also supervised the technical training of “Negro” soldiers during World War I, and now served as the first
commission’s secretary. Dr. C. T. Loram, chairman of the South African Native Affairs Commission, and
former chief inspector of native education in Natal, was included in the second commission. Hanns
Vischer, secretary and member of the newly formed Advisory Committee on Education in Tropical Africa at
the colonial office in London, and Mrs. Vischer also served in the second commission.

Only two of the members of the first commission also served in the second. These were Dr. Thomas

Jesse Jones and Dr. James Emmanuel Kwegyr Aggrey, the latter of the famed Achimota College in Gold
Coast (Ghana). Dr. Aggrey’s inclusion had been suggested by Dr. Paul Monroe, a professor at Columbia
University and member of the board of trustees of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. “The Great Aggrey,” an individual
of outstanding ability, had just completed a professional teaching qualification. He went on to exert significant
influence on the activities of the Education Commissions, and left an indelible mark on subsequent
developments in African education.

The first of the two Phelps-Stokes Education Commissions carried out its activities in western, southern and
equatorial Africa from July 15,1920 to September 10, 1921, and in particular visited Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Gold Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Belgian Congo, Angola, South Africa, and the British territories. The second,
instituted at the suggestion of colonial governments, concentrated its efforts in eastern, central, and southern
Africa from January 5, 1924 to June 19,1924, traveling to Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Nyasaland,
Rhodesia, South Africa, and the trust territories. The goal of the education commissions was to ascertain the
necessary requirements for improvement of the education of blacks in Africa.

The commissions invoked the Jeanes idea, which was based on the view that Africans were a mainly rurally
oriented and agriculturally based people; it was named after Anna T. Jeanes, who had donated money to pay
for the teachers of rural schools. Jeanes education went beyond the basics of formal teaching, and sought to
facilitate an overall change in the socioeconomic makeup of African communities. It sought to do this
by encouraging the emphasis of the African environment in the teaching of skills and trades as well as by
promotion of the African way of life; African institutions, customs, stories, and songs; and the use of drills
and games as a teaching method.

The most far-reaching of the commissions’ recommendations were centered on the teaching of industrial
education and agriculture as the core basis of colonial African education. Hence, less emphasis was placed on
the “literary” or “bookish” education of Africans, as it was considered to be irrelevant to their needs. It was
also seen to be alienating Africans from their predominantly rural lifestyle. Instead, institutions that promoted
manual work and taught “practical” subjects were upheld as a good illustration of appropriate African
education. The education philosophy espoused by the commissions sought to promote African traditions and
aimed to foster African appreciation of these. Appropriate education of women was considered to be
paramount to the adoption of a holistic and rurally oriented education system. It was on the basis of this that
domestic science in its widest sense was envisaged as an appropriate education for women. Women’s
education was to include hygiene and sanitation, the care of infant life, simple remedies for common ailments,
and the nursing of the sick. Concerns about health and the spread of disease, advances in medicine (and,
notably, the discovery of new vaccines) influenced the inclusion of hygiene in the curriculum.

In both formal and informal ways, African education was to reflect more closely the needs of a mainly rural
populace. In this regard, much emphasis was placed on the importance of the village school. Teacher training
was to form an integral part of this holistic view of African education, and in this regard mobile schools were
started using both the teachers and extension workers to bring the school closer to the community. In eastern
and central Africa for example, model Jeanes settlements or model villages were set up that served as
examples to the rest of the community; in Zimbabwe, home visits by social workers, nurses, and family
welfare educators were a part of the plan.

The commissions made valuable observations regarding the status and future prospects of the Western
education of Africans—in particular, mission education, the education of women and girls, and the role of
agriculture and indigenous skills training. The activities of the commissions culminated in the publication of
two reports. The first, published in 1922, was titled Education in Africa: A Study of West, South and
Equatorial Africa by the African Education Commission, under the Auspices of the Phelps-Stokes Fund and
Foreign Mission Societies of North America and Europe. The second report, entitled Education in East Africa,
was published in 1925.

Lily Mafela

See also: Education.

Further Reading
King, K. J. Pan-Africanism and Education: A Study of Race, Philanthropy and Education in the Southern
States of America and East Africa, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Lewis, L. J. Phelps-Stokes Reports on Education in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962.

Phelps-Stokes Fund. “Education in Africa: A Study of East, Central and Southern Africa, Second African
Education Commission under the Auspices of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, in Cooperation with the International
Education Board, 1923-24.” 1925.

Phelps-Stokes Fund. “Report of the Education Commission in West, South and Equatorial Africa, July 15th,
1920-September 10, 1921.” 1922.

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Phelps Stokes

The Phelps Stokes Fund (PS) is a nonprofit fund established in 1911 by the will of New York
philanthropist Caroline Phelps Stokes,[1] a member of the Phelps Stokes family. Created as the
Trustees of Phelps Stokes Fund, Phelps Stokes connects emerging leaders and organizations in
Africa and the Americas with resources to help them advance social and economic development.

Among the many organizations that trace their roots to Phelps Stokes are UNCF, the Booker
Washington Agricultural and Industrial Institute (BWI), the American Indian College Fund, the
American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the Jackie Robinson Foundation and the
Association of Black American Ambassadors.

Phelps Stokes is especially known for its contribution to education in the U.S. South and British
colonial Africa. Indeed, Edward Berman writes that between 1911 and 1945, Phelps Stokes
"played a role in American Negro and especially in African education disproportionate to the
rather meagre financial resources it contributed directly to these endeavors between 1911, when
it was incorporated, and 1945. [Phelps Stokes'] endowment of slightly less than $1 million was
small when compared with other philanthropic organizations established early in the twentieth
century." [2]

Contents
[hide]

 1 Work in the United States

o 1.1 1911–1941
o 1.2 1942–1969
o 1.3 1970s
o 1.4 1980s and 1990s
o 1.5 21st century
 2 Work in Africa
o 2.1 General
o 2.2 Liberia
 3 Presidents
 4 Notable trustees
 5 References
 6 Further information
 7 External links

Work in the United States[edit]

Phelps Stokes has promoted a number of published studies on critical social issues. In the United
States, it commissioned groundbreaking studies of black intellectual potential for college
education at the University of Virginia and the University of Georgia. Phelps Stokes also
supported the historic Jeanes Teachers Program, which became a model for education in the rural
South.

The original charter of Phelps Stokes (PS) included deliberate attention to the needs of American
Indians, particularly for the educational and human development of those historically
underrepresented and marginalized. Throughout its history, PS has built upon this foundation in
a variety of ways.

1911–1941[edit]

During the first thirty years, PS made small grants totaling approximately $19,000 for Indian
schools, organizations, and scholarships. Its first grant was allocated in 1915 with $1,000 to
Reverend Henry Roe Cloud and Professor F.A. McKenzie to conduct a preliminary survey of the
state of Indian schools.

In 1926, PS gave a $5,000 grant to the Institute for Government Research (now the Brookings
Institution) to conduct a research project under the leadership of Lewis Meriam. John
Rockefeller, Jr. provided primary financial underwriting for that program. The report, The
Problem of Indian Administration, commonly known as the Meriam Report, served as the basis
in the 1930s for the Roosevelt Administration's policy towards American Indians. This policy,
groundbreaking for its time, urged the U.S. government to allow American Indians to exist as
culturally unique peoples, and to retain reservation land bases in their control. The policy also
established most of the contemporary tribal governments through the Indian Reorganization Act.

In 1939, the Indian Rights Association (IRA) requested assistance to study the controversy over
the range management controversy on the Navajo Reservation. Phelps Stokes provided $1,800
for the study. This inquiry was eventually published by Thomas Jesse Jones as The Navajo
Problem: An Inquiry. One aspect of that study was Ella Deloria's The Navajo Indian Problem.
That year, PS also helped found the American Indian Institute in Wichita, Kansas under the
leadership of Henry Roe Cloud.

1942–1969[edit]

Phelps Stokes' involvement in American Indian communities waned after World War II until the
appointment of Dr. Wilton Dillon as Executive Secretary and Director of Research in 1957.
During the initial years of Dillon's leadership, PS became involved in planning studies and
conferences related to American Indian development. This assistance typically came in the form
of $1,500 grants to organizations such as Arrow, Inc., an affiliate of the National Congress of
American Indians.

In 1958, Phelps Stokes provided $1,500 for a group of American Indian leaders to travel to
Puerto Rico. There, the group studied a local community development program, which resulted
in scholarships for Indian students to study at the University of Puerto Rico. On a smaller scale,
PS informally helped the Museum of Primitive Art in New York to organize an art exhibit.

In 1960, Dillon organized a symposium on economic development in regards to American Indian

during the annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology held at the University of
Pittsburgh. Over the next several years, PS continued to provide small grants for projects. For
example, in 1961, PS gave $500 for a photographic study of Navajo education. In 1963, Dillon
represented PS at the National Congress of American Indians Leadership Conference where PS
sponsored discussions focused on juvenile delinquency, law enforcement, land tenure problems
and relationships with state governments.

1970s[edit]

In 1970, Franklin Williams became president of Phelps Stokes. Williams began organizing
conversations with various organizations, such as the American Indian Community House to
help revitalize and strengthen Phelps Stokes' presence in Indian communities.

The following year, PS began work on the American Indian Reference Book, modeled after its
American Negro Reference Book, using a $7,500 Ford Foundation grant. Fred Dockstader,
Director of the Museum of the American Indian in New York, was a member of the committee.
The Museum was later absorbed by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).
Because the Smithsonian Institution was launching a more extensive Native American Reference
Book, PS ceased its efforts and returned the remaining grant money to the Ford Foundation in
1957.

In 1973, Tom Katus joined PS as Program Coordinator. Katus assisted the development of the
American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) and initiated PS's Indian Educational
Development Internship Program. Discussions began with the Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State to develop International Indigenous Educational
Exchange Programs for American Indians and indigenous groups throughout the world.

Phelps Stokes implemented an international Indian educational exchange conference by enabling

a Navajo Community College staff member to participate in an exchange with Caribbean and
African educators. It also helped found the Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt,
North Dakota. In 1974, PS started to develop the American Indian College Fund, based on the
model of the United Negro College Fund whose creation Phelps Stokes supported. Barbara
Bratone, Development Officer at PS, helped AIHEC launch AICF, and offices were initially
located at the Phelps Stokes headquarters in New York City.

PS, the Johnson Foundation, and AIHEC co-sponsored the first philanthropic conference ever
held in “Indian Country.” More than 40 philanthropists from throughout the United States
attended a conference at the Chief Gall Inn on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. As a result
of that meeting, PS and AIHEC published a report on Indian Higher Education and Philanthropy.
Baker, Martin and Katus conducted the research and wrote The Directory of American Indian
Private Funding Sources, published by AIHEC. This directory was critically reviewed by The
Foundation News as “the best [funding directory] ever published.”

In 1975, Paige Baker, Jr. became the Director of American Indian Programs at PS, where he
continued to develop international exchange programs with Ghana, South Africa's Bantustans,
Kenya, and Latin American Indians.

In 1976, Phelps Stokes secured an initial grant to launch the Native-American Philanthropic
News Service (NAPNS), its new director journalist Rose Robinson (Hopi). She published The
Exchange, a quarterly publication for information exchange between Indians and the
Philanthropic world; The Roundup, news briefs and opportunities for Indian groups; Bulletins,
an information piece on meetings and events; and the famed Red Book, a pocket size directory
updated quarterly of all key federal officials with an interest in Native American programs. In
1977, Robinson succeeded Baker as Director of Phelps Stokes' Native American programs.

In 1977, Katus established the western office of Phelps Stokes, located in Rapid City, South
Dakota and launched the Rural Ethnic Institute. One Feather and Katus co-hosted the Red-White
TV Dialogue; for seven years, this program aired on over 20 commercial television stations in
eight states, reaching an audience of 4.3 million viewers. In 1977, PS created an Indian Advisory
Board, which toured Mexico and Guatemala considering an exchange program between Central
and North American Indian groups.
Phelps Stokes' American Indian Program relied primarily on grants from foundations and
corporations, including General Mills Foundation, Donner Foundation, Aetna Foundation,
Rockefeller Foundation, New Land Foundation, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, AMAX
Corporation and Union Carbide. By the end of the 1970s, the Phelps Stokes budget for American
Indian programs was $114,000.

1980s and 1990s[edit]

In the 1980s, international exchanges continued. In 1983, PS staff traveled to West Africa
(Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and Morocco) to study legal and educational institutions in
those countries in comparison to American Indian institutions. Rose Robinson became a Vice
President of Phelps Stokes. PS worked with the Native American Science Association as on the
suicide prevention work of Zelma Minthorn. Phelps Stokes' involvement with American Indian
issues waned again in the 1990s.

21st century[edit]

Badi Foster became Phelps Stokes' sixth president in 2001. In 2007, Phelps Stokes hosted a
three-day conference and film festival at the Fond du Lac Ojibwe School in Cloquet, MN. One of
the other major projects of Phelps Stokes is its involvement as a national programming
organization for the State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program.

Work in Africa[edit]
General[edit]

Phelps Stokes convened several commissions to study the educational conditions and needs of
black Africans, and made recommendations for improving access and quality. Dr. James E. K.
Aggrey, known as “the Booker T. Washington of Africa,” helped to lead the commissions and
formulate a comprehensive model for education.

Currently, Phelps Stokes supports the DuBois Center for Pan-African Culture in Accra,
established in 1985 as a national monument of Ghana.

Phelps Stokes' relationship with South Africa began in 1929 with the establishment of the South
African Committee on Race Relations, which later became the South African Institute on Race
Relations. The Fund also operated the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Southern Africa Refugee
Scholarship Fund and the Southern African Scholarship Fund, which in the 1980s provided free
college education to hundreds of black young adults from southern Africa.

Liberia[edit]

The Phelps Stokes family played an active role in assisting freed U.S. slaves to settle in Liberia,
and the first flag of Liberia was sewn in the home of Anson Phelps Stokes in the mid-nineteenth
century. The first President of Liberia, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, was well acquainted with both
Anson Greene Phelps and Thomas Stokes. Anson Phelps provided funding for a theological
department in Liberia, which led to the founding of Liberia College in 1851. Between 1911 and
1946 many African students passed through the office receiving almost $21,000.00 in
educational support.

In 1898, Caroline Phelps Stokes, Anson's granddaughter, endowed the Roberts Memorial
Scholarship at Tuskegee College in honor of the first president of Liberia. In addition to the
scholarship Caroline also willed a generous amount of money to support the creation of the
Phelps Stokes Fund upon her death in 1909. Through this bequest, the Phelps Stokes Fund was
officially established in 1911. Phelps Stokes has maintained, with only brief interruptions due to
war, an official presence in Liberia since the 1920s.

In 1924, the Fund convened an Advisory Committee on education in Liberia led by James
Sibley, a strong proponent of the Booker Washington education philosophy. The Committee
concluded that most of the work conducted by religious missions was superficial and lacked
contact with the community. Sibley later organized a Teacher lecture series that was attended by
95% of teachers in Liberia and ultimately persuaded the government to contribute money
towards publication of textbooks adapted to Liberian and West African conditions. In 1927,
Sibley organized the Association of Jeanes Teachers for Liberia which supported the much-
needed expansion of the Methodist Episcopal's St. Paul River Industrial Institute and changed its
name to the Booker Washington Institute. In late 1927, the Liberian Legislature granted a charter
to the Association to incorporate the Booker T. Washington Agricultural and Industrial Institute.
At the same time, Ms. Olivia Egleston Phelps Stokes, whose bequest established the Phelps
Stokes Fund, provided significant financial support to the newly established Booker Washington
Institute, and the fund has continued to work with the institute. Phelps Stokes President Badi
Foster accepted appointment to the BWI Board of Governors in spring 2008.

Phelps Stokes also contributed to the development of other postsecondary education institutions
in Liberia. Specifically, Phelps Stokes helped to develop the curricula and training faculty at
Cuttington College and hosted Cuttington College in exile at the Phelps Stokes offices in New
York City during the height of the Liberian civil war. Phelps Stokes supported the development
of the Ricks Institute in Virginia, Liberia. When the Liberian civil war ceased temporarily in
1997, the Fund implemented a training program for former combatants at the Booker T.
Washington Institute (BWI) in collaboration with USAID. As a result of this program nearly
2,500 Liberians were trained as artisans and skilled technicians. In addition to this training
program, the library and several buildings at BWI were also renovated.

In 2006, the Phelps Stokes Fund created the Girls and Women's Empowerment and Leadership
program that utilized radio and information communications technology to give a voice to
victimized girls and women of Liberia. The program delivered non-formal and formal
educational information to individuals, particularly women and young people, who lacked access
to traditional schools. Phelps Stokes partnered with local organizations to form radio clubs
whose members learned the technical components of producing content for dissemination via
community radio stations, satellite radio, and other media outlets. In 2007, this program
expanded to free computer and adult literacy courses to the underserved population of Monrovia.
Other Phelps Stokes initiatives in Liberia include convening a joint advisory committee on
education, appointing an educational advisor to support the Liberian government, performing
multiple third-party needs assessments on education in Liberia, and fielding and funding
proposals for private sector projects.

Presidents[edit]
 1911–1946 Anson Phelps Stokes II
 1946–1947 Jackson Davis
 1947–1958 Isaac Newton Phelps (Ike) Stokes II
 1958–1969 Frederick Douglass Patterson
 1970–1990 Franklin Williams
 1990–2000 Wilbert J. LeMelle
 2000– Badi Foster
 2011– Pape Samb

In 1958, the Phelps Stokes Board of Trustees changed the title of president to Chairperson of the
Board and changed the title of Educational Director to President. Educational directors prior to
this transition were:

 1917–1945 Thomas Jesse Jones

 1946–1953 Channing Tobias
 1953–1958 Frederick Patterson

Notable trustees[edit]
 Ralph J. Bunche
 The Most Rev. Desmond Tutu (Honorary)

References[edit]
1. Jump up ^ Thomas C. Hunt; James C. Carper; Thomas J. Lasley, II; C. Daniel Raisch (2010).
Encyclopedia of Educational Reform and Dissent. SAGE Publications. p. 404. ISBN 978-1-4522-
6573-5.
2. Jump up ^ Edward Henry Berman (1969). "Education in Africa and America: A History of the
Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1911-1945". Dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University.

Further information[edit]
The Anson Phelps Stokes Papers are housed at the Yale University Library. The Phelps Stokes
Fund papers are housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Several
important works have been published about Phelps Stokes. They include:

 Eric S. Yellin. "The (White) Search for (Black) Order: The Phelps Stokes Fund's First
Twenty Years, 1911-1931". The Historian (Winter 2002).
  Sister Anthony Scally. "Phelps-Stokes confidential memorandum for the Trustees of the
Phelps-Stokes Fund Regarding Dr. Carter G. Woodson's Attacks on Dr. Thomas Jesse
Jones". The Journal of Negro History (Winter-Autumn 1991).
 R. Hunt Davis Jr. "Charles T. Loram and an American Model for African Education in
South Africa". African Studies Review (September 1976).
 Aaron Brown. "The Phelps-Stokes Fund and its Projects". The Journal of Negro
Education (Autumn 1956).
 Patti McGill Peterson. "Colonialism and Education: The Case of the Afro-American".
Comparative Education Review (June 1971).
 Edward H. Berman. "American Influence on African Education: The Role of the Phelps-
Stokes Fund's Education Commissions". Comparative Education Review (June 1971).
 B. H. Y. Chiu. "Carrie's will: A Family Narrative of the Phelps-Stokes Fund". Doctoral
Dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University (2009).
 Swarns, Rachel L. (18 June 2016). "Words of Obama's Father Still Waiting to Be Read
by His Son". The New York Times.

External links[edit]
 Official Phelps Stokes Website
 Phelps-Stokes Fund records: 1893-1970 at Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division at the New York Public Library
 Anson Phelps Stokes Family Papers (MS 299). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale
University Library

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EDUCATION

October 18, 2006

Educating the “Native”: a Study of the Education Adaptation Strategy in

British Colonial Africa, 1910-1936
by Sam Savage

By Omolewa, Michael

This essay discusses how examinations were used as an "adaptation strategy" beginning in 1910 when British
examinations boards were invited to assist with the conduct of secondary school examinations in colonial territories
in Africa. Although adaptation covered all aspects of formal schooling, this study focuses on secondary education
because of its importance as the highest level of education available, and its significant impact on colonial society at
the time. Much of recent literature on the adaptation question has focused on the various levels of schooling beyond
basic village education in rural areas.1 The essay examines the responses, particularly in Nigeria, to the suggestion
that secondary education should be "adapted to local needs," and the results of the adaptation efforts, culminating in
the introduction of the "Overseas School Certificate Examination" for Nigerian candidates in 1936.

The foundation of Western education in Africa was laid by Christian missionaries who were eager to use literacy
training to introduce Christianity and win converts to their religion.2 The missionaries also used Western education
to train Africans as catechists, messengers, and other positions needed to assist them in realizing the social and
economic development and transformations desired by the European missionaries and their agents. Merchants and
traders also required qualified personnel to handle their business transactions. Thus after considerable consultations
between the Church Missionary Society (CMS), founded by the Church of England to promote evangelization, and
the local merchants and traders, the first secondary school in Nigeria, the Church Missionary Society Grammar
School, was founded in Lagos in 1859.3

It is by no means surprising that the first secondary school in Nigeria was established by the Church Missionary
Society (CMS). Its secretary from 1841 to 1872, Henry Venn, firmly believed in the development of adequate
human resources, and that the school must be self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating, and should
employ African personnel.4 The African commercial and business elite also required personnel that was well-trained
and equipped to handle political and economic transactions between Africans and outsiders involving record
keeping and correspondence regarding the exchange of European and African goods and services.5 Africans also
gradually began to recognize the advantages and the attractions of post- primary education, especially the increased
salaries and wages, and improved conditions of service. Historian Andrew Paterson has observed that in South
Africa, "Africans perceived education to be an alternative source for economic security in a time of land
dispossession."6

In a quick succession, additional secondary schools were established by the CMS in various parts of Nigeria, and by
other missionary organizations, including the Baptist Mission, the Catholic Mission, and the Wesleyan Methodist
Mission, beginning in the 1870s. The Qua Iboe, the Primitive Methodist Society, established secondary schools
mostly in Eastern Nigeria starting in 1922. Secondary schools also gradually began to spring up in various other
parts of Africa, as community colleges, high schools, and secondary grammar schools, often in cooperation with
Christian missions that provided the teachers, the curriculum, and the necessary contacts; however, the local
communities provided the buildings and raised funds for these educational services.7 This was the background to the
establishment of various mission schools in Africa. In Nigeria, for example, ethnic-based secondary schools such as
Oduduwa College, Ile-Ife; Edo College, Benin City; and Imade College, Owo began to sprout up to attend to the
various needs of communities and individuals eager to take advantage of the new opportunities for advancement and
promotion in the new society that emerged with the coming of the missionaries and the colonial administrative
bureaucracy.8
At first the British colonial government was unwilling to have a direct involvement in the promotion of secondary
education in Nigeria. However, British officials soon recognized that, following the establishment of colonial rule
and the subsequent increase in the demand for clerks, messengers, interpreters, and other administrators needed to
maintain British control in the region, it became imperative to establish secondary schools. Thus in 1909 British
colonial administrators decided to establish King's College in Lagos as a model secondary school, providing "sound
general education."9 Government officials also began to complement and supplement the work of the missions by
establishing model secondary schools in various provinces. The colonial administrators also began to introduce
legislation and provide the policy framework for the expansion of schooling in the colonies.10

This process was accompanied by the invitation to the British examinations board to test the literary competence and
ability of the graduates of the secondary school system and to measure its quality. To this end, London University
examinations were introduced early to Mauritius, and later to parts of East and West Africa. The colonial
administrators also invited the University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate into the country in 1910 to
assist in conducting the secondary school examinations.11 In doing so the British colonial regime believed that it
was taking advantage of the decision of the University of Cambridge in its statute of 11 February 1858, to establish
the syndicate for the examination of students who are not members of the university.12 The University of Oxford,
which had established the University Delegacy for Local Examinations on 18 June 1857, followed Cambridge in
1929 in the work of conducting secondary school examinations in Nigeria.13

Examinations have remained a very powerful instrument for controlling the content of instruction. They influence
curriculum design and preparation, and dictate the teaching and learning process.14 As Fafunwa, a Nigerian
education specialist, declared, "It is an educational truism that examinations control the curriculum and whosoever
controls a country's examination system controls its education."15 Historian Angela Little has made the following
important point:

[Examinations represent the ultimate goal of the educational career, they define what are the important aspects of a
school curriculum and they dictate to a large extent the quality of the school experience for both teacher and student
alike. Moreover, the quality of the examination system itself can have a considerable impact on the quality of skill
formation encouraged by the education system, which skills in turn could have a considerable impact on the inputs
to the labour market.16

Historian Mary E. Dillard has also observed that it is important to devote closer attention to the instrument of
measurement in our effort to understand how educational systems have developed, "in addition to studying
educational content, curriculum, and the structure of schooling."17

DEBATING THE CONTENT OF COLONIAL EDUCATION

Initially, the Africans expected much from the attainment of Western education, but they quickly became
disappointed and frustrated over the results.18 This disenchantment was expressed in complaints from Africans and
Europeans alike that the "imported" educational system failed to achieve its objectives. Western education was
considered "too European," and therefore, ill-suited and irrelevant to African needs, and that in the process, the
indigenous values of love, community relationships, and profound spirituality were being lost. At the same time,
some complained that the new system had introduced new values of intolerance, hatred, "cutthroat competition,"
disharmony, pride, arrogance, covetousness, and even cheating. It was further suggested that there was too much
rote-learning and too little application of the principles being taught in the schools. Colonial officials soon resolved
that massive reform was required.19

The plans for reform were influenced by educational practices in the United States and promoted by the Phelps-
Stokes Fund, an American philanthropic foundation. In 1920 the Phelps-Stokes Fund launched its African Education
Commission, led by Thomas Jesse Jones, a Welshman who had formerly taught at Hampton Institute in Virginia.20
Jones assembled a team of six observers that was to travel to West Africa to survey colonial educational institutions
and practices and to make recommendations. The team visited Nigeria from 4 November to 16 December 1920, and
traveled to Kano, Onitsha, and Calabar. In its report published in 1922, the team concluded that Western education
had little prospect for success in the African colonies because it was transplanted to a soil that was unwilling to let it
grow. It was suggested that formal schooling should be adapted to suit its environment. With regard to secondary
education, the commission argued that it should aim at training African leaders and suggested that activities of
secondary school should be determined with particular regard to the needs of such leadership. Among t\he subjects
considered relevant were sciences, physiology, hygiene, sanitation, social studies, mathematics, languages,
gardening and rural economics. The report emphasized that formal schooling should, in all lands, concentrate on
"indigenous education" and be adapted to local needs.21

Among the team members were education specialists and anthropologists from the Teachers College, Columbia
University. They all had a keen interest in examining the educational and social development of "primitive" races,
their folkways and history, because they believed that Africans should be made to learn about these cultural beliefs
and practices at all stages of their formal schooling. This view was supported by the members of the Advisory
Committee on Native Education in Tropical Africa established in 1923 by the Colonial Office in London. Even after
the committee was renamed the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, its members continued to insist
on the need to design a specific educational system, curriculum, and examination system for Africans, and to adapt
the existing system of formal schooling to suit local needs, arguing that Western education was unsuitable for
Nigerians and other colonial subjects.22

The colonial government officials who believed that formal schooling in the colonies must take the culture of the
"natives" into account shared their views with others in London and this theme was echoed throughout the colonial
period. The Imperial Education Conferences of 1912, 1927, 1937 and the Advisory Committee Reports on
Education in the Colonies all emphasized this idea, and a 1925 white paper, titled "Education Policy in British
Tropical Africa," highlighted the need to adapt education "to the mentality, aptitudes, occupations and traditions of
the various peoples, conserving as far as possible all sound and healthy elements in the fabric of their social life."23
The 1925 white paper was dispatched to all the provincial governors in African colonies, and Lord Lugard,
chronicler of British colonial history, described it as "one of the principal landmarks of imperial policy in the
twentieth century."24 In October 1929, W. Ormsby-Gore, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies and the
chairman of the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, reiterated the position that schooling had to be
adapted to the circumstances and lives of colonial peoples. He declared that:

In all parts alike the need is felt for an education which will preserve and develop the individuality and traditions of
the various peoples, whether indigenous or immigrant, and which will give them at the same time the means of
acquiring a scientific or technical mastery of the forms of nature and a wider outlook on human experience.25

It appears that the British government considered its policy of adaptation of education to suit local needs as
extremely important. In pursuance of this policy, the British government supported the formation of the International
Institute of African Languages and Culture, which instituted five prizes for the best books written by Africans in
African languages. This action was taken, according to the authorities of the Institute, to give impetus to the
production of vernacular literature.26

THE ROLE OF BRITISH UNIVERSITIES

The responsibility for planning secondary school curricula for the African colonies in the early decades of the 20th
century in Africa remained with the Departments or Ministries of Education of the various countries. But the
initiative for changes in school examinations remained in the hands of the Advisory Committee of the Colonial
Office whose primary concern, according to historian Clive Whitehead, "was to maintain more direct control over
the spread and content of education, especially at the secondary level."27 However, the actual examinations were
conducted mainly by the University of London School Examinations Board, the Cambridge University Syndicate for
Local Examinations, and the Oxford Delegacy for Local Examinations. As was noted, examinations have a decisive
influence on the school curriculum, and university examination bodies had expressed their willingness to consider
suggestions from various quarters for appropriate modifications.28 The Advisory Committee on Native Education in
Tropical Africa acknowledged this fact in June 1929, and as early as 1930, the committee began to consider ways of
bringing about changes in the content of the educational programs in colonial schools.29 A sub-committee of the
Advisory Committee was later set up under Sir James Currie that corresponded with the English universities and
expressed an eagerness to modify the existing syllabi for the colonies to reflect local needs. The Advisory
Committee assured university officials that it was not interested in lower standards, but wanted "to retain them
[colonial subjects] within the ambit of English education, whilst making such modifications. . . ."30

An education conference was held in London between 25 and 31 May 1935 to review proposals for the reform of the
syllabus for secondary school examinations in the colonies. Another meeting was held at the Colonial Office in
London on 5 December 1935 between the English examining bodies and colonial officials. At that meeting it was
agreed that a sub-committee should be set up to coordinate the activities of the examining bodies and should consist
of two representatives from each of the university boards concerned with examinations in the dependencies, as well
as individuals nominated by the secretary of state for the colonies.31

After several meetings, the Advisory Committee agreed on the format for the existing examinations and the division
into subject groups. It also agreed that the syllabi for history, physics, chemistry, and mathematics should remain
unaltered. It recommended that local flora and fauna be substituted for the European plants used in the botany
examinations, and that a greater emphasis should be put on local geography. Finally, it recommended that essay
topics in the English language paper should be made more meaningful to the African students and therefore
considered the inclusion of topics considered relevant to the "natives," including "Native markets,""Native
Music,""Native Dancing,""Popular Superstitions," and "Polygamy."32

All the English universities responsible for conducting school examinations in Nigeria favorably considered the
proposals submitted by the Advisory Committee on Native Education in Tropical Africa. However, as early as
October 1922, London University adopted Hausa and Yoruba as "optional special languages" for its university
entrance qualifying examinations. At its meeting on 18 October 1922, the London University Faculty Senate
approved the recommendation of the senate-appointed "Board of Studies in Oriental Languages and Literature" that
these two languages be adopted as suitable examination subjects.33 However, the University Senate insisted that in
making these decisions about the adoption of African languages, it would only be guided on academic grounds.
Thus at its meeting of 5 February 1926, it resolved that "Efik is not a suitable subject to be offered at the
Matriculation Examination on the ground that there is not a sufficient native literature to allow an adequate test of
proficiency in the language."34

In principle, the study of indigenous languages was a positive move, but the assumption that Africans could not
grapple with the nuances of the English language was highly questionable. This probably explains why the
indigenous peoples were suspicious of the intentions of the colonial officials whom they believed did not want them
to master the English language, and therefore compete with them for positions of authority. In October 1930,
London University's Board of Studies in Oriental Languages and Literature recommended that Igbo be recognized
as a special language at the matriculation examination on the grounds that it is the language of over four million
people. It was also recommended as a compulsory subject for governmental officials being sent to the region before
their appointments could be confirmed. The London University Senate, however, raised objections and refused to
consider "extra academic factors" in the recognition of a language at the matriculation examination.35

The Board of Studies in Oriental Languages and Literature had suggested that "some stimulus is needed to induce
Igbo young men to study, and to help them in the development of their own language; and the recognition of Igbo in
this way may help to this end."36 However, in making its final recommendation in November 1930 to the
Matriculation and School Examinations Council, the Senate concluded that Igbo should not be approved as a special
language at the matriculation examination.

It was ascertained from further inquiries that Igbo literature consists at present of the Bible, the Prayer Book, a
Reader in the written language known as Union-Igbo, a few books of a religious nature in one or other of the
dialects, and a history of a town written by a native of that town, more or less after the Union-Igbo model; and
further that Igbo is at present a language of many dialects.37

The University of London also faced problems introducing the study of African history into the curriculum because
of the absence of textbooks or other written materials.38 Some colonial officials were convinced that some of the
indigenous peoples came to their present destinations "at some time unknown, and had nothing in the way of history,
handicrafts, customs, or physique to make them notable."39 The existing textbooks devoted only a few paragraphs
to the history of the African peoples before the coming of the Europeans. Moreover, Englishman T. R. Batten, the
author of several textbooks on African history, argued that "throughout the long ages before Africa was controlled
by European powers inthe nineteenth century, there were few changes in African ways of living."40 Most colonial
officials did not consider the history of the "natives" worthy of study, largely because they saw "history" as a subject
needed to inform the "natives" about the European "civilizing missions." As one of them put it: "We must tell them
the story of how the white man has come in his great ships to show the new ways of mining and planting, bringing
also factories and cinemas, railways and motorlorries, that break up the old life."41 University entrance
examinations included questions on Henry the Navigator and the European explorers possibly as part of the
promotion of "imperial" African history.

With regard to the art curriculum, Cambridge University carefully considered the proposals submitted by K. C.
Murray, who as early as 1931 had criticized the Syndicate's art examination as unsuitable for developing art
education in Nigeria because "they have little to do with art and nothing to do with African traditions."42 Murray
then volunteered to consult Africans who, being "a practicable people," would be able to design a syllabus in art
education. In 1933 the Cambridge Syndicate reported that it was proposing to adapt its course to "tropical needs and
conditions."43 Overall, by 1936 the Syndicate had worked out several new examination programs for the Nigerian
candidates, but the examinations retained the titles "Junior School Certificate" and "School Certificate." Both
examinations included "overseas subjects" such as geography, which had some questions inserted to test the
candidates' knowledge of "local conditions." For the award of certificates, all candidates for the examinations were
required to pass the English language paper, which was designed to test the candidates' ability to write English
correctly. Candidates were required to offer English and four to eight subjects chosen from at least two groupings of
courses.44

The Cambridge University Syndicate, like the other examination bodies, continued to insist on the attainment of
specific marks to determine the level of achievement of candidates, and emphasized that "special attention is paid to
the English language test in awarding grades. In no circumstances is Grade I, the highest level, awarded to a
candidate who fails to reach the pass standard in this test."45 This of course had implications for the mastery of
other European languages in the country, none of which was made compulsory.46

THE CHALLENGE OF ADAPTATION

The implementation of the adaptation strategy in Nigeria was fraught with difficulties. Western education was
introduced into Africa five centuries after universities had been established in Europe, and more than one thousand
years after Western education had been in practice in a written form. Those who pioneered Western education in
Africa were aware that while they were dealing with "fundamental" schooling in Africa, in England the universities
of Oxford and Cambridge and English grammar schools had been established as far back as the 12th century.47
Some colonial officials assumed that formal schooling in Africa was to be limited to basic village education in a
rural setting, but there were those who begrudgingly recognized the need to extend schooling to the secondary
education level. Furthermore, the Christian missionaries who introduced Western education were ignorant of
traditional African educational systems, with their emphasis on apprenticeship training, oral tradition, and respect
for elders, honesty, and fair play.48 Many missionaries and colonial officials assumed there was no educational
foundation on which they could build. They later realized that their assumptions about the indigenous educational
practices were invalid.

Moreover, the new educational system produced unexpected outcomes by conferring rewards such as jobs and social
status on successful students. This drove some African students to do almost anything to achieve success, including
rote-memorization of the material, cheating, or even buying their way to examination success. Unlike traditional
education, which was interwoven into communal life, Western education produced a new breed of Africans who
were at times alienated from their own communities because of the power and authority conferred on them by their
new status. As one colonial official observed, "Some products of the educational system overestimated their own
achievement and worth."49 The colonial office in the 1950s had to accept that,

Education practice in Africa has come under fire from various quarters.... There are those who say that the education
we offer is too bookish, is not related to the environment of the country, and does not pay sufficient attention to
character training; that primary education ought to have an agricultural and rural bias; that secondary education turns
out too many people with a desire for white-collar employment.50

At independence, a Nigerian minister of education, Chief J. A. O. Odebiyi, described Nigerian secondary school
graduates as "mercenary, materialistic and complacent" and added that they "tend to think that possession of a
Cambridge or West African Examinations Council certificate entitled them to believe that the world owes them a
living."51

The implementation of the adaptation strategy further undermined its potential success. Indeed, adaptation became
cosmetic, incomplete, nonparticipatory, alienating, and exclusive. Those who benefited did not share the educational
vision, but went along for personal gain. This was because the officials who implemented adaptation did not
anticipate or call for any contribution from the local people. Eventually, British examinations boards accepted the
adaptation program and began introducing new elements into the tests. However, these minor changes did not
greatly affect the overall development of Nigerian secondary education. The English language paper remained
compulsory, and even the addition of new essay topics for Nigerian candidates did not introduce major changes in
the paper. Some essay topics such as '"Where there's a will there's a way': How far can this proverb be applied to our
everyday life?" were more appealing to Nigerian candidates who had come to sit for the examinations only to prove
the dictum. The fact that the examinations had to be written in intelligible and meaningful English only reinforced
the Nigerian students' belief that "adaptation" meant greater facility in Western subjects.

However, many of the subjects were not greatly affected by the adaptation strategy. Arithmetic, geometry, and
algebra papers continued to be designed to test the candidates' ability, irrespective of their geographical location.
Physics and chemistry examinations, for instance, tested the same information whether they were taken in Britain or
in the colonies. Botany and geography were among the "adapted" subjects, but the basic requirements for standard
examinations remained and only about one in ten of the questions reflected colonial circumstances. For example,
geography papers before and after adaptation included questions on the earth- its form, movement, and atmosphere;
construction and use of maps; distribution of land and water; vegetation; distribution of population; and so forth. But
for candidates in Africa, at least one question was added that dealt with the regional geography of Great Britain, and
either Africa or America.52

The examiners included questions on the history of the exploration of Africa and the growth of the British Empire,
but not on the history of African peoples. The subject groups remained, but the list of topics was expanded.
However, it was possible for the candidates to avoid some of the newly introduced subjects and still obtain a
certificate. It was also possible to avoid any new topic inserted in the old subjects and still pass the examination.

Perhaps it would be better to describe the new system as a modification rather than "adaptation" since the continued
emphasis on English as the lingua franca was itself a negation of adaptation. The secretary of state for the colonies,
Ormsby-Gore, came close to acknowledging this reality when in an address at the annual Conference of Educational
Associations on 5 January 1937, he declared that "external examinations have always tended to influence curricula,
and have not always helped the true course of good education."53

It is significant that the apologists for adaptation did not comment on the negative aspects of external examinations.
For example, no consideration was given to the view that examinations inevitably generated "an exaggerated spirit
of selfish rivalry, and a desire of immediate praise and reward. . . . Personal ambition prevails over public spirit and
patriotism . . . love of self as opposed to love of others."54 And Sir John Lubbock pointed out in his criticism of the
British examinations that "every schoolmaster will be anxious, for the credit of the school, to obtain as large a
proportion of certificates as possible, and under these circumstances attention will be concentrated on the four
subjects taken. . . ."55 Therefore, it would appear that the promoters of adapted education failed to appreciate the
problems of an educational system based solely on examinations, problems which transcended race and nation.

Historian Henry D'Souza observed that the adaptation strategy was largely restricted to the New Zealand Maoris, the
black population in the Caribbean, the native peoples of the Philippines, Africans in the sub-Saharan region, and
black South Africans. He has further explained that adaptation "implied low standards compared with that offered at
comparable institutions in Britain."56 He also expressed agreement with the description of T. Smith, a British
Member of Parliament, who had described adapted schooling as "education on the Woolworth basis." D'Souza
concluded that the adapted curricul\um was "a method of discriminating against the 'native' by slowing down the
educational pace and watering the curriculum content."57 Charles Loram, an apologist for the adapted curriculum in
South Africa, was concerned with the "natives of South Africa," and in his view "industrial training should be made
the chief end of Native education."58 Historian Andrew Paterson pointed to the "certainty with which Loram
attributed consensus" on the question of adaptation in South Africa among "all white colonial interest groups."59

In the early 1920s, the distinct form of "Negro industrial education" associated with Hampton and Tuskegee
Institutes and aimed at maintaining the subordination of the southern black working class was recommended as
appropriate for the "native peoples" in European colonies in Africa. Historian P. S. Zachemuk explained that
"informed by the American-based Phelps-Stokes Commission, and modeled in part on what white Americans
thought suited their African American underclass, colonial education policy hoped to create loyal Africans who
knew their place in gendered colonial and racial hierarchies."60 Edward Berman contends that the recommendations
of the Phelps-Stokes Fund's Education Commission to Africa had "strong racist overtones," and would have proved
disastrous for the development of Africa had they been adopted.61 He noted that "the belief in African inferiority
and depravity led many to conclude that Africans and their American descendants could not possibly benefit from a
literary education."62 Berman also drew attention to the chairman of the Continuation Committee of the World
Missionary Conference who observed in 1914 that the "mental digestion" of the "child race" is weak, and that these
races "are more successful in getting knowledge than using it." The chairman then concluded that the intellectual
infirmity of the African had grown out of the "low state of his civilisation and the effect on his mind of centuries of
barbarous lawlessness and cruelty."63 Historian Kenneth King has been critical of the recommendations of the
Phelps-Stokes Commission because they were based on assumptions of African inferiority and served as a recipe for
political and economic subordination.64 These researchers also suggested that the Commission failed to have a
direct influence on educational developments in African colonies because it was overly ambitious, spent too little
time in Africa, and did not consult well-respected members of the African intelligentsia.65

Rather than planning a more suitable educational system, overworked and inexperienced colonial officials embarked
on the adaptation program half-heartedly. It is difficult to resist suggesting that if these officials had kept their own
children in the colony's schools, they would have appealed to more experienced and competent educational planners
outside the colony for advice and sought additional financial assistance for local educational programs from the
Colonial Office. However, colonial officials refused to bring their children with them because of fears about the
tropical climate. The official reports consistently carried the information that "West Africa has always had, and
deserved, the reputation of being so unhealthy that almost certain death would be the fate of the white man who
endeavoured to make it his home. And in this general condemnation Nigeria has been included."66 E. Speed, the
first Chief Justice of Nigeria, also commented that "by the nature of our service which precludes the possibility of
bringing up children in Nigeria, we are forced to maintain a residence for our family at home or at all events in some
climate where children can live."67 The adapted schooling available in the British colonies in Africa was meant only
to apply to African children, and historian Martin Carnoy suggests that the failure of Western education to produce a
mass of innovative and highly trained individuals was not a failure at all, but the direct result of the colonizing
function of schooling, adapted or otherwise, in a capitalist economy.68

In searching for the real motives for the genesis of the adaptation strategy, one must look at the apprehensions of the
colonial officials who suddenly discovered that Nigerians were investing heavily in their formal schooling, which
was considered a passport to upward mobility in the colonial system. Because the colonial government invested
comparatively little in schooling, many Nigerians began courses through self-education, scorned indigenous
education and sub-standard educational institutions, and vigorously embraced the English universities' examinations.
Many Nigerian youths began to consider the acquisition of the certificate as their prime objective for social
advancement. Commenting on "these misguided aspirations," of young West Africans, the well-respected Nigerian
nationalist Nnamdi Azikiwe pointed out that "the African is not, and never has been, a problem; there is no such
thing as an African educational problem." The real issue was the overarching emphasis on certificates, credentials,
and "degrees after one's name."69

But these values were rarely acquired through the passing of the School Certificate or the Overseas School
Certificate examinations. Azikiwe did not preach the discontinuance of the external examinations, but he wanted
them supplemented by training that would inculcate in the Nigerian youth a sense of dedication, patriotism, and
loyalty. It seems plausible to suggest that the colonial administration was not prepared to pursue such an educational
experiment, and there seems to have been an element of improvisation associated with adaptation because shortly
after the colonial officials transplanted Western education in Nigeria, they began to regret the initiative because of
its failure to create the colonial subjects "of their dreams." For example, it was suggested that instead of producing
cooperative citizens, "the present picture is one of ferment and conflict in which the individual, much more than in
the past, sees himself and his private interests evermore clearly, and society and his duties to it as something outside
himself, demanding and frustrating."70 British officials in Nigeria consistently complained that products of the
existing school system were generally disrespectful to colonial authority and generally discourteous toward the
traditional elders. Lord Frederick Lugard, the first governor of Nigeria, who was by no means a profound thinker or
intellectual, despised the products of the colonial school system. Lord Lugard frequently drew attention to the
negative comments about them, and agreed that they were usually "unreliable, lacking in integrity, self-control, and
discipline and without respect for authority of any kind."71

Other advocates of adaptation such as Lord Lugard's deputy, C. L. Temple A. Mayhew, the joint-secretary of the
Advisory Committee on Native Education, Sir Percy Nunn, Professor of Education at the University of London, and
a member of the Advisory Committee on Native Education in Tropical Africa, often defended the colonial
educational system. For example, J. H. Driberg, who became lecturer in ethnology at Cambridge University after
serving for several years in the colonies, argued that the "native" needed knowledge and skills in two crucial areas.

The two most important things are the maintenance of life and the perpetuation of his species. He has therefore to
have a thorough knowledge of all the economic activities of his tribe and of all the circumstances which may affect
them, such as insects or other pests, the seasons (which introduce him to astronomy), his physical environment. ...
As a member of society, he must know its laws and regulations and the way in which it is organised.72

In an address to the British Commonwealth Education Conference held in July 1931, Sir Percy Nunn argued that,
instead of chemistry, physics, and mechanics, the African must be taught biology because "the operation of
biological laws-especially micro-biology laws is ever present to him. ... If you ask many teachers in this country
what they understand by biology, they answer that they believe it has something to do with sex teaching. Let us get
this idea out of our heads when considering the significance of biology in Africa."73 A. Mayhew suggested that
certain subjects (which he did not name), could be eliminated from the list included in the school examinations. He
explained that "in tropical Africa or the Pacific we have for the most part primitive races that seem at present to have
but little to contribute, and that must undergo long years of patient work before they can effectively assimilate the
best that we can offer. . . ."74

As early as 1930, the director of education reported problems of unemployment among Nigerians with certificates of
British examination boards, and admitted that only a small proportion could find the clerical employment that they
desired. As a result, a large number of candidates were in search of clerical or similar occupations in various parts of
the country. The director added that the candidates were "suffering from a legitimate grievance if they are not
employed." In September 1932 at the meeting of the Advisory Committee on Native Education in Tropical Africa,
Sir Michael Sadler evoked "the danger of an academic proletariat." The members drew the attention of the colonial
officials to the possibility of the overproduction of these "colonial graduates."75 W. R. McLean argued that "unless
the product of university training, or indeed of any higher training, can be employed in the Dependency, it is
probably a political as well as an economic error for the local administration to provide uncontrolled facilities for
such training, and for the granting of British External degrees locally to native students."76

It appears that by the early 1930s there was considerable irritation, \perhaps anger, among colonial officials over the
growing number of qualified Africans who demonstrated their competence and training by passing the external
examinations, but who were deliberately excluded from the governance and administration of their native land.77

CONCLUSION

Adaptation was clearly a product of the fear of colonial officials who believed that the new African leaders were a
threat to continued colonial occupation of Africa, and the domination of the skilled labor market by the colonizers.
The criticism of African secondary school graduates therefore was a convenient invention of the colonial officials
who wished to maintain their position of authority. But the larger question is whether or not real "adaptation" was
possible under the colonial system. Colonialism was dominating and alienating and denied the subject peoples
freedom of choice or input in the planning and implementation of policies that affected them. Imperial officials had
no respect for the views of the colonized, and the schools were designed, not to meet the needs and aspirations of the
indigenous population, but those of their colonizers. The colonial system did not function for the good of the
colonized, who desired economic, social, and political development.

In addition, the original concept of "adaptation" had an underlying racist assumption. Even the European supporters
of adaptation concluded that the imported educational system had produced only "questionable" colonial subjects,
but often failed to acknowledge that the secondary schools produced graduates who went on to become efficient
clerks, surgeons, journalists, learned ministers of religion, powerful barristers, and Nigerian patriots. Perhaps it was
convenient for some biased colonial officials to brand these "promising" graduates also as potential agitators and
ne'er-do-wells. At the same time, there was a very strong suspicion among Nigerians that they were considered
incapable of mastering English education, and this explains their resistance to "adapted" education. As one Nigerian
nationalist sniped, "What is good for the goose must be good for the gander!" And this determination to resist
adaptation was clearly reflected in Nnamdi Azikiwe's advice to Nigerian youth who wanted to begin higher studies.

There is no achievement which

Is possible to human beings which

Is not possible to Africans.

Your studies of Logic should

Lead to the correct conclusions.

Therefore go forth, thou

Sons of Africa, and return

Home laden with the

Golden Fleece.78

Writing in 1930, Adeyemo Alakija, then a student of Oxford University, admitted that there was chaos in the
Nigerian educational system because "the African could not avoid attempting to imitate the European [and] the
European did not think it his duty to study the African's national institutions. He would modernise the African and
advance his mode of life from the European point of view."79 But Alakija challenged any plan to provide
substandard education for Africans because that would be based on European conceptions of the African as mentally
deficient. In his opinion, "Africans are not to be a nation of clerks without a future." As part of his education, the
African must be exposed to foreign influences and ideas. And he asked, "Should we say that the African ceases to be
African because he finds it more convenient to discard his gabardine for the Bond Street style?"80

By the 1920s it was clear that the indigenous African population had become highly suspicious of the intentions of
the various educational "commissions" that had sought to "adapt" what they considered to be an adequate
educational program to meet the needs of colonial subjects. Many of the educated African elites had been angered
by the various recommendations, which they believed would produce only second-rate scholars unprepared to go on
to the university or other institutions of higher learning. The context in which the adapted education system was
introduced did not foster partnership between the colonizers and the "natives." In fact, adapted schooling was
imposed on the indigenous people, and was strongly resisted by many. As Whitehead has aptly put it:
British models were certainly followed but not because they were deliberately imposed on colonial schools, but
rather because Africans and other colonial subjects insisted on them. Anything less would have been considered
second rate. It was for this reason that the policy of adaptation, so popular with colonial educators in the interwar
years, failed. Africans, in particular, wanted a carbon copy of British education and qualifications acceptable for
admission to British universities and University of London external degrees. A study of the classics may have made
little practical sense in tropical Africa, but Latin and Greek were part of the European educational gold standard to
which Africans aspired.81

Perhaps another reason Africans resisted adaptation was because they were not allowed to make the decision
themselves. As R. J. Mason, a contemporary observer, put it, "I think . . . that a successful adaptation can be made
only by Africans themselves. An alien people, and a ruling one, however well-intentioned it may be, can only take
another people so far along the road. Thereafter, they must find their own way, seeking such guidance as they
themselves feel the need."82 We should also point out that even the nations that had exported educational models to
the colonies had to embark on reforms at various points, as is evident in the important changes in the curriculum,
educational systems, and accreditation strategies in European and other developed countries.83

It is important to note that most of the educated elite that began to struggle to attain independence from British
colonial rule were not those who had the advanced education of the "unadapted" type found outside Africa. In fact,
many African nationalists grew up while the "adapted" version of education was being encouraged. The frustrations
of the limited education and the fear and suspicion sown in the minds of the young people who went through the
experiment blossomed into a rejection of the colonial apparatus, including the educational programs it generated.84

Perhaps we should add that there was scant willingness to use education to prepare Africans for leadership,
independent thinking, confidence building, and assertiveness. Character building, self- assurance, and the capacity to
work with others were not priorities. Nor was the system equipped to cope with the issues of ethnicity and class,
national identity, social justice, or equity and equality of access to advanced training. Certainly, these educational
programs were not geared toward finding solutions to the problems of hunger, poverty, technological backwardness,
or the challenges of democratic governance.85 Yet these should have constituted the basis for genuine educational
adaptation.

NOTES

I am grateful to the staff and authorities of the National Archives, Ibadan, Nigeria; the Cambridge University
Syndicate of Local Examinations, Cambridge; the Oxford University Delegacy of Local Examinations, Oxford;
Rhodes House Library, Oxford; the University of London Senate House Library, London; the Missionary Societies
of Great Britain and Ireland, London; the Institute of Historical Research, London; the Institute of Education,
London; and the University of Ibadan in Nigeria for giving me access to their rich collection of materials on this
subject. I am also grateful for the assistance provided by the Information Service of the Caxton Publishing
Company, London; and to the University of London authorities for permission to quote from the University Senate
Minutes. I wish to acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Mercy Ette, and the constructive comments of Professor V.
P. Franklin and the anonymous reviewers of this work.

1 See Clive Whitehead, "The Historiography of British Imperial Education Policy, Part II: Africa and the Rest of the
Colonial Empire," History of Education [England] 34 (July 2005): 441-54; Kenneth King, Pan Africanism and
Education: a Study of Race Philosophy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971), Peter Kallaway, "Colonial Education in Natal: The Zwaartkops Government Industrial
Native School 1888 to 1892," Perspectives in Education 10 (Summer 1987): 17- 33; Carol Summers, "Educational
Controversies: African Activism and Educational Strategies in Southern Rhodesia, 1920-1934," Journal of Southern
African Studies 20 (March, 1994): 3-25, Henry D'Souza, "External Influences on the Development of Educational
Policy in British Tropical Africa from 1923 to 1939," African Studies Review, 18/2 (1975), 35-43; D. G. Schilling,
"British Policy for African Education in Kenya 1895-1939," Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1972; Trevor
Coombe, "The Origins of Secondary Education in Zambia," African Social Research, 3 (June 1967): 173-205; 4
(December 1967): 283-315; and 5 (June 1968): 365-405; and Penelope HelhenngLon, British Paternalism in Africa,
1920-1940 (London, 1978).
2 For discussion on the subject see Jacob Ade Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891: The Making of a
New Elite (Evanston, IL, 1965); E. A. Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria (London, 1966); F. K.
Ekechi, Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland, 1857-1914 (London, 1972); C. K. Graham, The History of
Education in Ghana from Earliest Times to the Declaration of Independence (London, 1971).

3 See A. A. Adeyinka, "The Development of Secondary Grammar School Education in Nigeria," M.Ed. Thesis,
University of Ibadan, 1974; A. A. Fajana, Education in Nigeria, 1842-1939, An Historical Analysis (Lagos, Nigeria,
1972); Jacob Ade Ajayi, "The Development of Secondary Grammar School Education in Nigeria, " Journal of the
Historical Society of Nigeria 2 (No. 3, 1963): 517-35.

4 Ajayi, Chris\tian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891.

5 Some of the comprehensive accounts on this subject are available in Helen Kitchen, ed., The Educated African: A
Country-by- Country Survey of Educational Development in Africa (New York, 1962); L. J. Lewis, Society,
Schools and Progress in Nigeria (London, 1965); Peter C. Lloyd, ed., The New Elites of Tropical Africa (London,
1966); Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status and Social Change Among the Educated Elite in Colonial
Lagos (Cambridge, MA, 1985).

6 Andrew Paterson, '"The Gospel of Work Does Not Save Souls': Conceptions of Industrial and Agricultural
Education for Africans in the Cape Colony, 1890-1930," History of Education Quarterly 45 (Fall 2005): 377-404.

7 The African American community in the United States had shared a similar experience of investing in education in
response to the neglect by the state and local officials to provide equal or adequate funding for all-black or
predominantly black public schools. For a comprehensive story of the experience in the United States, see V. P.
Franklin, "Introduction: Cultural Capital and African American Education" The Journal of African American
History, 87 (Spring 2002); 175-218; and "They Rose or Fell Together. African American Educators and Community
Leadership, 1795-1954," Journal of Education 172 (1990); 36-64; and V. P. Franklin and Carter Julian Savage, eds.,
Cultural Capital and Black Education: African American Communities and the Funding of Black Schools, 1865 to
the Present (Information Age Publications 2004).

8 For a useful discussion on the origins of secondary schools in Nigeria, their locations, school enrollment, student
background, and retention rates, see Adeyinka, The Development of Secondary Grammar School Education in
Nigeria; Fajana, Education in Nigeria, 1842- 1939; and Ajayi, "The Development of Secondary Grammar School,"
517- 35.

9 For some useful discussion on the subject, see Philip Foster, Education and Social Change in Ghana (Chicago, IL,
1965); Leonard James Lewis, An Outline and Chronological Table of the Development of Education in British West
Africa (London [n.d]); and Colin Wise, A History of Education in British West Africa (London, 1957).

10 See N. Omenka, The School in the Service of Evangelisation: The Catholic Education Impact in Eastern Nigeria,
1886-1950 (Leiden, Netherlands, 1989); F. K. Ekechi, "Colonization and Christianity in West Africa: The Igbo case,
1900-1915," Journal of African History 12 ,(No. 1, 1971); M. McLean, "A Comparative Study of Assimilationist
and Adaptationist Education Policies in British Colonial Africa, 1925-1953," University of London, Ph.D.
dissertation, 1978; and Fajana, Education in Nigeria, 1842-1939.

11 Among the helpful studies on the subject are Yoshiko Namie, "The Role of the University of London Colonial
Examinations Between 1900 and 1939, with Special Reference to Mauritius, the Gold Coast and Ceylon," London
University Institute of Education, Ph.D. dissertation, 1989; and Michael Omolewa, "The Promotion of London
University Examinations in Nigeria, 1887-1951," The International Journal of African Historical Studies 13 (No. 4,
1980): 651-71; and "Cambridge University Local Examinations Syndicate and the Development of secondary
Education in Nigeria, 1910-1926," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 8 (No. 4, 1977): 111-30.
12 There is a comprehensive introduction to the work of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate
(UCLES) at the (UCLES) Archives, One Hundredth Annual Report to the University of Cambridge, (Cambridge,
Eng., 1958).

13 Michael Omolewa, "Oxford University Delegacy of Local Examinations and secondary Education in Nigeria,
1929-1937," Journal of Educational Administration and History 10 (No. 1, 1978): 39-49.

14 J. Roach, Public Examinations in England, (London, 1971).

15 A. B. Fafunwa, History of Education in Nigeria (London, 1974), 193.

16 Angela Little, "The Role of Examinations in the Promotion of the 'Paper Qualification Syndrome,'" in
International Labour Office; Paper Qualification Syndrome (PQS) and Unemployment of School Leavers: A
Comparative Regional Study, Jobs and Skills Programme for Africa (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 982), 177.

17 Mary E. Dillard, "Examinations Standards, Educational Assessments, and Globalization Elites: The case of the
West African Examinations Council," The Journal of African American History 88 (Fall 2003): 413-28.

18 For some discussion on this subject, see L. J. Lewis, Society, Schools, and Progress in Nigeria (Oxford, 1965);
M. Read, Education and Social Change in Tropical Africa (London, 1955); Kenneth King, Pan Africanism and
Education: A Study of Race Philosophy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa (Oxford,
Eng., 1971).

19 F. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1922), especially the section on
"Education."

20 See Thomas Jesse Jones, Education in Africa: A Study of West, South and Equatorial Africa by the African
Education Commission (New York, 1922), 67; and Lewis, Society, Schools, and Progress in Nigeria.

21 Jones, Education in Africa.

22 Clive Whitehead, "The Advisory Committee on Education in the [British] Colonies 1924-1961," Paedagogica
Historica 27 (No. 3, 1991): 385-421.

23 Colonial Office, Educational Policy in British Tropical Africa, "Memorandum by the Advisory Committee on
Native Education in the British Tropical African Dependences," His Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO) Cmd.
2374, 1925.

24 M. Perham, Lugard, The Years of Authority, 1898-1945 (London, 1960), 661.

25 W. Ormsby-Gore, "Research and Experiment in Overseas Education," Overseas Education 1 (No. 1, October
1929): 2.

26 See E. A. Ukong-Ibekwe, "On the Study of Vernacular Languages," Nigerian Teacher 1 (No. 4, 1935): 32.

27 Whitehead, "The Historiography of British Imperial Education Policy," 442.

28 Copies of the correspondence between the Colonial Office and the universities are included in the Matriculation
and School Examinations Council Report submitted to the University of London Senate in 1935 and 1936, and
discussed in those two years. see University of London Senate Minutes (hereafter, SM), 1935-36.

29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.

31 Archives of the Missionary Society of Great Britain and Ireland (hereafter, MSG), Box 225. Minutes of the
meeting of the Advisory Committee on Native Education in Tropical Africa, 9 September 1932.

32 SM, 1935-36. The topics that were added for the English language paper included: "The Value of Reading
Fiction,""Your Favourite Author or Character,""Rain,""Wild Flowers,""The Forest,""Native Salutations and
Greetings,""The Choice of Career for an Educated African,""The Good and Bad Characteristics of Native
Religions."

33 SM (18 October 1922), 314. The Oxford Delegacy followed the example of London University and introduced
Yoruba as an optional subject for Nigerian candidates in 1929. The Cambridge University Local Examinations
Syndicate began, by special arrangement from December 1936, to conduct special examinations for West African
candidates. In December of that year, the Cambridge University Local Examinations Syndicate titled its
examinations "Special School Certificate for West Africa and the Bahamas."

34 SM (24 February 1926), 2293.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 SM (19 November 1930), 802.

38 For a comprehensive discussion on this subject, see P. S. Zachernuk, "African History and Imperial Culture in
Colonial Nigerian Schools," Africa 68 (No. 4, 1998): 484-505.

39 See J. M. Welch, "Schools and Community Service in a Backward Area," Overseas Education, 3 (October 1931):
11.

40 T. R. Batten, Past and Present, (London, 1943), iii.

41 B. Mathews, Black Treasure: The Youth of Africa in a Changing HOrW(NeW York, 1928), 109. See also, W. R.
Crocker, Nigeria: A Critique of British Colonial Administration (London, 1936), 15; and compare the observation
by Sir Philip Mitchell: "And so at the end of the last century, within the vast region enclosed by the coast of Africa,
with its widely spaced forts, towns, and settlements of people from other countries, bounded on the north by the
Nigerian Emirates, the Sahara, the Nile . . . , and the Abyssinian massif, the West found itself in control of millions
of people who had never adopted an alphabet or even any form of hieroglyphic writing. They had no numerals, no
almanac or Calendar, no notation of time or measurements of length, capacity, or weight, no currency, no external
trade except slaves ... no plough, no wheel, and no means of transportation except human head porterage on land and
dugout canoes on rivers and lakes. These people had built nothing, nothing of any kind in material more durable
than mud, poles and thatch. . . ."; quoted in J. F. Ade Ajayi, "The Continuity of African Institutions under
Colonialism," in Emerging Themes of African History, ed. T. O. Ranger (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 1968), 190-91.

42 K. C. Murray was a tutor with the Department of Education in Nigeria in 1931. For his observation on the
Syndicate's Art Examinations, see K. C. Murray, "Arts and Crafts in West Africa," Overseas Education 5 (October
1933): 4.

43 Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, One Hundredth Annual Report to the University of Cambridge. 1958,
University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) Archives.

44 The group classifications are as follows:

Compulsory Subject:

English Language

Group I:

English Literature, Religious Knowledge

Group II:

Latin, Greek, French, German, Spanish, Italian

Other Languages (Yoruba, Hausa, or any other approved language)

Group III:

Elementary Mathematics, Additional Mathematics

General Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology

Chemistry, Botany, Hygiene and Physiology

History

Geography

Mechanics

Physics

Group IV:

Art, Music, Handicraft, Technical Drawing, Housecraft

45 Cambridge University Syndicate of Local Examinations, Annual Report for 1936. UNCLES, Archives.

46 For a full discuss\ion of this subject, see Michael Omolewa, "The Teaching of French and German in Nigerian
Schools. 1859-1960," Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 18 (No. 3, 1978): 379-96; and "The Ascendancy of English in
Nigeria Schools 1882-1960," West African Journal of Modern Languages (No. 3, 1978): 152-66.

47 See, Eric Ashby, in association with Mary Anderson, Universities: British. Indian, African: A Study in the
Ecology of Higher Education (Cambridge, MA, 1966).

48 J. A. Majasan, "Yoruba Education: Its Principles, Practices and Relevance to Current Educational Development,"
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Ibadan, 1967: O. Ikejiani, ed., Nigerian Education (Lagos, 1964).

49 Department of Education, Nigeria, Memorandum on Educational Policy in Nigeria (Lagos, 1947).

50 J. R. Bunting, "Certificates and Education," West African Journal of Education 1 (October 1958): 100.
51 J. A. O. Odebiyi, "The Aims of Secondary Education in Western Nigeria," West African Journal of Education 1
(June 1967): 43.

52 It is particularly interesting to note that the British examinations boards were not influenced by the arguments
advanced by the colonial officials on the need to ask African candidates questions on African tribal tales such as the
artful antelope and the strong and sometimes stupid lion, or those on "witchcraft" and "superstition." Perhaps the
examiners did not consider such topics of educational importance, or probably recognized witchcraft as a universal
phenomenon, that the fear of "the power of the evil eye" is as old as man, and that many of the "pagan" practices in
Africa had their origins in ancient beliefs of the Greeks and Romans. Ayandele notes that Mungo Park, the great
British explorer, fervently believed in magic and superstition. E. Ayandele, African Exploration and Human
Understanding: The Mungo Park Bi-Centenary Memorial Lecture, (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1971).

53 W. Ormsby-Oore, "Educational Problems of the Colonial Empire," Journal of the Royal African Society 36
(April 1937): 165.

54 Sir John McNeil, "Competitive Examinations," The Quarterly Review 108 (October 1860): 569.

55 Sir John Lubbock, "On the Present System of Public School Education, with Special Reference to the Recent
Regulations of the Oxford and Cambridge School Examinations Board," Contemporary Review 27 (January 1876):
168.

56 Henry D'Souza, "External Influences on the Development of Education Policy in British Tropical Africa from
1923 to 1939," The African Studies Review 18 (September 1975): 36. For an examination of the introduction of a
form of "adapted education" into separate black secondary and normal schools in the South, see James D. Anderson,
The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1988), 33-78.

57 D'Souza, "External Influences on the Development of Education Policy," 37.

58 Charles T. Loram, The Education of the South African Native (London, 1917), 146.

59 See Andrew Paterson, "The Gospel of Work Does Not Save Souls," 377.

60 Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 33-88; Zachemuk, "African History and Imperial Culture in
Colonial Nigerian Schools," 487-488.

61 Edward H. Berman, "American Influence on African Education: The Role of the Phelps-Stokes Fund's 1920
African Education Commission," Comparative Education Review 15 (June 1971): 145.

62 Ibid.

63 Edward H. Berman, "Christian Missions in Africa" in African Reactions to Missionary Education (New York,
1975), 10.

64 E. A. Ayandele, The Educated Elite in the Nigerian Society (Ibadan, Nigeria, 1974).

65 Ibid. Edward Berman believes that the Commission was also handicapped because it chose to work with J. E. K
Aggrey, who was "little known" outside the United States; see "American Influence on African Education," 143-45;
and Sylvia M. Jacobs, "James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey: An African Intellectual in the United States," The Journal
of Negro History 80 (Spring-Fall 1996): 47-61.

66 See, Colonial Office List, "Report on Nigeria," 1910-20, National Archives, Ibadan.
67 E. A. Speed to Lord Lugard, 3 July 1914, Manuscripts of the British Empire (Mss. Brit. Emp.) 8. 74, Rhodes
House Library, Lord Fredrick Lugard Papers, Oxford, England.

68 Martin Carnoy, Education and Cultural Imperialism (New York, 1974); see also, A. Fajana, "Colonial Control
and Education: The Development of Higher Education in Nigeria, 1900-1950," Journal of the Historical Society of
Nigeria 6 (December 1972): 323-40. B. O. OIoruntimehin notes that during this period the French were also
debating the need for "adaptation" in the education of their colonial subjects for similar reasons. For a discussion on
French colonial education, see B. O. OIoruntimehin, "Education for Colonial Dominance in French West Africa
from 1900 to the second World War," Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 7 (June 1974): 347-56.

69 Ben N. Azikiwe, "How Shall We Educate the African?" Journal of the African Society, 33 (April 1934), 144.

70 Walter R. Miller, Have WeFailed in Nigeria? (London, 1947), 3. This was the broad view of the colonial
education officers, with few exceptions. see, for example, Hans N. Weiler, ed., Erziehung und Politike en Nigeria
(Education and Politics in Nigeria) (Freiburg, Switzerland, 1964).

71 Frederick Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, 5th Edition, with a new introduction by Margery
Perham (London, 1965), 428.

72 J. H. Driberg, At Home with the Savage (London, 1932), 234- 35.

73 Address delivered at the British Commonwealth Education Conference on July 27, 1931, by Sir Percy Nunn. For
the report of the proceedings of this conference and the text of Sir Percy's address, see Overseas Education 3
(October 1931): 1-11.

74 A. Mayhew, Education in the Colonial Empire (London, 1938), 3.

75 E. R. J. Hussey, Memorandum on Educational Policy in Nigeria (London, 1930).

76 W. H. McLean, Memorandum on Colonial Education Instit

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