Colony and Nation.

A Short History of Education in Trinidad and Tobago 1834–1986 by Carl

Campbell
Review by: Kathleen Drayton
Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (MARCH, 1997), pp. 154-157
Published by: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West
Indies
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 154 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES

Carl Campbell, Colony and Nation. A ShortHistory ofEducation in Trinidad

and Tobago 1834-1986, Ian Randle Publishers, Jamaica. 1992.

This useful short account of the development of education inTrinidad and

Tobago illustrateshow education is used as an agent of the political process.
The colonial power established the systemas itsmeans of social control and
later,national leaders sought to reconstruct it to meet perceived national
needs. The storybegins with speculation about theAmerindian experience
and the pre-plantation Spanish settlementand thenmoves to the period after
1797 when Trinidad was annexed by the British and forwhich education
records exist.

Once Trinidad became British, British colonial policies dictated the de

velopment of the school systemas theydid in all the other BritishWest India
Colonies. Cultural, historical and geographical differenceshowever affected
the ways inwhich the policies could be implemented inTrinidad. Its "new
ness" as a colony probably contributed to Governor Woodford's prohibition
of schools for free coloureds at a time when the Church in Barbados, for
example, had already established schools on theCodrington estates for slaves
and a Charity School inBridgetown attended by both freeblack children and
slaves.

Trinidad, had been settled firstby Spaniards who invited in French

settlers and was peculiar in "the extent towhich differences of nationality,
culture, religionand language cut across the traditional colour strata."To this
should be added class differences.Although French and English Creoles joined
forcesagainst the black and coloured population, Trinidad society,up to the
middle of the twentieth century,gave itshighest status to the French cre?les
who had originally owned and controlledmost of thewealth of the society.
Its second highest status went to the English colonial RAJ which held the
high offices and controlled the army and later the police. Differences of na
tional origin were reflected in differencesof status, religion and wealth.
Cultural differences inTrinidad contributed to the perpetuation of the
dual control of education by Church and State which not even EricWilliams
could end. They led also to the establishment in 1859 of the non denomina
tionalQueen's Collegiate School, laterQueen's Royal College (QRC), which
was intended as a means of combatting the pervasive French culture and the
Roman Catholic Church. St. Joseph'sConvent, a girls' school, startedby French
nuns in thisBritish colony in 1836,which taught exclusively in French up to
the 1980s, was an example of what the British wanted to change. Although

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 Book Reviews 155

French Roman Catholic priests started St.Mary's College, theCollege of the

Immaculate Conception (CIC) in 1863, theywere forcedby 1870 to affiliate
the school to QRC in order to enter students for the external Cambridge
examinations and for the prestigious Island Scholarships which provided ac
cess to University education.

The chapter on "The Elementary Schools 1834-1939" takes the reader

from the end of slaveryto the reformsof bothMarriot and Captain Cutteridge.
It traces the development of the dual system of control and Lord Harris'
policies which led to the establishment of non denominational ward schools,
of the first Board of Education in Trinidad, of the post of Inspector of
Schools and to the preparation of the first regulations for themanagement of
theward schools. These followed similar initiatives taken ten years earlier in
Barbados! Also mentioned is the importanteducation work of theCanadian
Presbyterianmission among the East Indian population and the growth of
private schools. Campbell discusses the concern, more vigorously alive in
Trinidad and British Guiana where there are largeEast Indian populations,
that education should be an integrativeforce.
The story includes the development of secondary schools, of teacher
education and of technical and vocational education. Opposition to the last
illustrateshow people can influence education reforms.Trinidadian parents,
like others elsewhere in the Empire, recognised that the type of vocational
education offeredby colonial reformerswould advance neither theirchildren's
occupational nor social status.They thereforerejected agricultural education
and school gardens, craftwork and vocational training as choices in prefer
ence to the academic options.
To a great extent the colonial education systemprepared people forwhat
existed and not for the futuredevelopment of the society.To this extent the
British colonial systemsucceeded in itsuse of education to perpetuate "men
tal slavery."Campbell mentions that in 1938, "A.C. Rienzi, thewell known
Indian trade unionist," proposed "in the Legislative Council that all three
island scholarships should, for the next ten years, be reserved for study in
petroleum engineering, engineering and agriculture and that the winners
should be bonded to return to serve the colony." Rienzi was ridiculed al
though therewas somemerit inhis idea.The education systemsof the region
have always looked to the British model and even now they continue to
measure their effectivenessby comparison with developments in the former
"mother country."

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 156 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES

A chapter is devoted to major developments in education under Eric

Williams and thePNM 1956-81 which concludes with the very controversial
statement that "whenWilliams died inMarch 1981 Trinidad and Tobago
had themost impressive education structure in the Commonwealth Carib
bean." Williams was one of the greatestCaribbean writers on education and
decolonisation and had definite ideas of how an education system should
serve the nation. Paradoxically, because education is not only complex but
innatelypolitical there is always a big divide between idea and implementa
tion.Williams certainly presided over a vast expansion and modernisation of
education; fought theChurches with partial success over the dual control of
schools; and recognised the need to decolonise education. The oil boom in
1973 provided the resources fornew school buildings and more teacher edu
cation at both non graduate and graduate levels.However serious education
mistakes were made. One of these was the separation of most government
secondary education into junior and senior schools. To what extent themis
takes were those of technocrats advising and implementingand not of the
leaders is always problematic inmodern democratic states.
In his shortbook, Campbell touches on a variety of other topics: female
education, education inTobago, Indian schools, the cult of the island schol
ars, education and society and the imperative of social integration.He also
provides interesting statistical information on secondary and elementary
schools, on exhibitions scholarshipwinners and on apprenticeship training in
13 appendices. The last chapter on recent developments between 1981 and
1986 is the least satisfactory,perhaps because it races across these years too
quickly.
The writer's erudition and considerable knowledge are revealed in the
breadth of scope he aims forand in the nuggets of informationwhich appear.
For example, theMandingoes were led "bymen who could sign their names
inArabic," and itwas FrederickMarriot who preached "the virtues of the
secondarymodern school" forTrinidad. He and Cutteridge "said that gram
mar school education was unnecessary formost of thosewho might usefully
continue their education afterage twelve."Marriot in factbecame one half of
theMarriot Mayhew Commission of 1931-32 which produced an influential
education report forTrinidad, Barbados and the Leeward and Windward
Islands, and he was also the education "expert" assigned to the 1938 Moyne
Commission. His recommendations on curricula vocational edu
emphasised
cation and perpetuated the sexual division of labour.Girls learned to sew and
cook while boys did carpentry and school gardening and other "hard" male

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 Book Reviews 157

subjects. It is this kind of detail which this Short History is compelled to

omit.

The writer might have provided a more structured historical and ideo
logicalbackground for the storyof the development of education inTrinidad
and Tobago, but, the book's length is recognised as a major constraint De
spite any shortcomingswhich have been identified thiswork is the first seri
ous scholarlybook on the historyof education published in the region and it
is an important contribution to our social history. Itwill be useful to both
students of history and students of education.
When thisShortHistory was published five years ago we were told that
ProfessorCampbell's "more comprehensive studyon theHistory of Education
in Trinidad and Tobago (had) been accepted for publication.''We look for
ward to this second work.

Kathleen Drayton

Editor's Note: Carl Campbell's book, The Young Colonials: A Social History
of Education in Trinidad & Tobago 1834-1939 is now available fromUWI
Press.

A F. Robertson. The Big Catch: A Practical Introduction toDevelopment

Westview Press,1995. 144 pp. 0-8133-2522-6.

A F. Robertson's The Big Catch: A Practical Introduction toDevelopment

represents a sharp from conventional discourse on social and eco
departure
nomic development. The bulk of development literatureaddresses a narrow
academic audience and is generally concerned with defining themost appro
priate technical and theoretical parameters of the development process. The

Big Catch, in contrast, attempts to "enliven the study of development by

offeringa simple but vivid dossier on a particular development scheme."As
itsauthor explains, the text aims "to convey the character and urgency of the

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