Schooled for Servitude: The Education of African Children in British Colonies, 1910–1990

Abstract

Our paper examines the education of African children in countries that were colonized by Britain, including Ghana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. We show how education plays an important role in shaping and transforming cultures and societies. Although the colonies received education, schools were segregated according to race and ethnicity, and were designed to produce racially stratified societies, while loyalty and allegiance to Britain were encouraged so that all felt they belonged to the British Empire or the Commonwealth. In writing about the education of African children in British colonies, the intention is not to convey the impression that education in Africa began with the arrival of the colonizers. Africans had their own system and history of education, but this changed with the incursion by missionaries, educators as well as conquest and colonialism.

1. Introduction

Our paper examines the education of African children in countries that were colonized by Britain, with a focus on South Africa, while general observations are made about other African countries colonized by Britain. Through providing a historical overview of education in former British colonies, we also present a ‘genealogy of education in the colonies.’ Although the focus of our paper is on education in former British colonies, we also highlight the role of the United States’ educational policies and their influence in colonial Africa. The impact of the United States’ educational policies is detectable in African colonial education, and in different historical periods, experts from the United States were consulted on matters related to the education of Africans. In the early part of the 19th and 20th Centuries, the education of African Americans had a bearing on the education of Africans in British colonies (Loram 1927; Yamada 2008). In both contexts, race and racism played a huge role in the education of Black children (Curry 2009; Jansen 1996; Margo 1986). In this paper, we also show how Plessy vs. Ferguson provided a blueprint for apartheid education in South Africa, just as the Brown vs. Board of Education influenced educational policies in postcolonial countries.

Genealogy, in this context, refers to studying the history and origins of a system. For example, there are studies on the genealogy of law (Clark and Lauderdale 2012) and political authority (French 2011) among other things. However, genealogy itself is also a way of conducting research (Vucetic 2011). As such, in this paper, we examine a history or genealogy of education in former British colonies in Africa.

Education plays an important role in shaping and transforming cultures and societies (Appel 2004; Armah 2008; Bowles and Gintis 1976; Mandela 1994; Pinar and Bowers 1992). Although the colonies received education, schools were segregated according to race and ethnicity, while loyalty and allegiance to Britain were encouraged so that all felt they belonged to the British Empire or the Commonwealth (Boampong 2013; Mandela 1994). In writing about the education of African children in British colonies, the intention is not to convey the impression that education in Africa began with the arrival of the colonizers. Africans had their own system and history of education, but this changed with the incursion by missionaries as well as conquest and colonialism (Bude 1983; Diop 1974; Wa Thiongo 2008).

Colonial governments made education available to African children, ranging from eight years and above. However, there were very few schools for African children, and as such, only a small section of the population attended formal schooling (Armah 1972; Wa Thiongo 2014). Colonial education, in many ways, was an important component of colonizing the mind, and the curriculum played an important role. We point out, at the onset, that even though Europeans did not “introduce education to [West] Africa what they did bring were their own particular methods of instruction and their subject matter content. Western education molded minds along different lines than did indigenous African education” (Corby 1990, p. 314). In other words, a new type of education took place with the colonization of Africa.

We also highlight how the colonial curriculum was designed to educate African children to take up subordinate roles. Although the curriculum was designed to foster subservience to Europeans and loyalty to Britain, schools in Africa ended up being centers for revolutionary protest, and birthplaces of liberation movements (Armah 2008; Malisa 2010). The colonial curriculum created an image of civilized Africans as those who had assimilated into European culture. Such Africans ended up with a different sort of values, often conflicting with indigenous cultures and understandings of childhood (Armah 2008; Salazar 2013; Mandela 1994).

For the most part, the targets of colonial education were children, ranging from those in elementary to secondary school (Bude 1983; Ofori-Attah 2006; Omolewa 2006). The curriculum, often imported from either Britain or North America, was intentionally designed to produce Africans who would have an inferiority complex when it came to their interaction with Europeans. In addition, such educated Africans were to be content working for Europeans, and when placed in positions of authority, would ensure that other Africans continued to serve the interests of the colonizer (Mandela 1994). A significant part of our work is on South Africa, a British colony, which only gained independence in 1992.

2. Method

This article uses document analysis as a qualitative research method to examine the education of African children in British colonies. The analysis of the data in qualitative research enables researchers to delve into and understand the behaviors, experiences, and meanings that people attach to the phenomenon under study (Sutton and Austin 2015). Many researchers (Creswell and Poth 2018; Glesne 2016; Patton 2015; Thomas et al. 2015) have identified the sources of data in qualitative research as interviews, observations, documents, and audiovisuals.

Documents are a source of data that a researcher can use to support a study. Documents may be electronic or printed (Bowen 2009). The information in documents is not normally produced by the researcher but may be a compilation of images and texts that record issues, experiences, regulations etc. (Bowen 2009; Schensul et al. 1999). Documents may be (a) primary, consisting of fieldnotes from participant observations, interview transcripts, photographs to mention a few, or (b) secondary, consisting of demographic data, records, surveys, database information and many more (Schensul et al. 1999). Per O’Leary (2014), documents are primarily in three forms: public records, personal documents, and physical evidence. Public records consist of reports, handbooks, institutional/company websites, syllabi, etc.; personal documents consist of emails, blogs, individual websites, journals etc.; physical evidence consist of photographs, artifacts, posters, etc. (Bogdan and Biklen 2006; Bowen 2009; O’Leary 2014). In this article, we utilize public records, personal documents, syllabi, and literature.

Document analysis is a process of examining and interpreting documents (electronic or printed) systematically to gain understanding and knowledge (Bowen 2009; Altheide and Schneider 2013). Analyzing documents involves coding information to develop themes in order to draw realistic conclusions or meanings (Altheide and Schneider 2013; Bengtsson 2016; Bowen 2009). Per Bowen (2009), document analysis is often used to corroborate findings from other data sources such as interviews in a process called triangulation. Our sources of data, as such, are different documents. In keeping with document analysis, we examine the themes that emerge from the literature, from the documents.

Documents used in the article included official government papers, especially documents regarding apartheid education. The literature on the Eiselen Commission and the Bantu Education Act is publicly available and accessible, and it captures the educational policies of South Africa in the period after 1948. Likewise, the Plessy vs. Ferguson documents are publicly accessible. In addition to government policies and court documents, there is ample literature on education during the colonial era. Such literature includes autobiographical texts, including the autobiography of Nelson Mandela (1994). Tracts or pamphlets from missionaries as well as novels and historical fiction also chronicle education in British colonies. Many of the novels and historical fiction by Ayi Kwei Armah of Ghana and Ngugi Wa Thiongo from Kenya are primarily critiques of colonial education. Loram’s book, written in 1927, provides a comprehensive analysis and comparison between education in South Africa and the United States. The books and documents listed above are cited and appear in the reference section of this paper.

3. Colonialism and the Education of African Children

The 1884 Berlin Conference created different countries in Africa, and blanketed the continent under different European countries, including Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium, among others (Armah 2010). Colonialism and colonial education remained intact up to the time different African nations gained political independence. Colonial education in Africa was undertaken by separate entities, each with its own purposes. These included missionaries, merchants, and foreign or colonial governments.

When the missionaries sought to educate Africans, their main purpose was to have Africans who could help during worship times. According to Omolewa, the missionaries saw education as useful for training Africans to help the missionaries. As such, those Africans who were educated could become catechists or messengers (Omolewa 2006). Rarely were Africans allowed to become priests, especially prior to the 20th century. Mission schools could be found in different parts of each colonized country, depending on which Christian denomination had settled in that part. Among missionaries, education was acknowledged as an important tool for mission evangelization: “Mission societies therefore endeavored to redevelop aspects of mission education and adapt to the changing sociopolitical environment, while protecting space for religious education” (Yamada 2008, p. 23).

In addition to missionaries, traders or merchants also provided education to Africans. This kind of education was designed to produce Africans who would help the merchants with administering foreign business or the business interests of the colonizers. Such an education happened at a very low scale, and only a very small percentage of the African population received an education. Merchants sometimes worked with the missionaries in shaping the curriculum (Ofori-Attah 2006; Omolewa 2006).

Just as missionaries and merchants had a vested interest in the education of Africans, colonial governments also saw an advantage in educating a small section of the African population, including the sons of chiefs. To help in the administration of the colonies, the British “founded a number of schools throughout their African colonial empire to educate sons of chiefs for positions of inferiority” (Corby 1990, p. 319). It was not uncommon for the colonial administration to pick the most callous of the chiefs’ sons and train them to take up jobs as servants of the empire (Armah 2000, p. 1972). Such sons were identified while they were relatively young, before they reached their teens.

Over time, neither the Africans nor the colonial agents (missionaries, merchants, and colonial governments) were happy with the quality of education as well as the result of colonial education. One major problem was the inherent nature of racism in the educational system. In most colonies, schools were segregated: there were some for Africans, and some for Europeans. Schools for European (White) students were better when compared with those for Africans (Blacks). In general, colonial governments created educational systems for propagating the advantages of European students while educating Africans for subservient positions (Walker and Archung 2003). The aim of colonial education was that:

The brown workman would always have to work under a European and therefore there would be no conflict. The cast of mind of the Native is such that he could rarely take charge. His lack of inventiveness and of ingenuity in mechanical work would make him inferior to the European as a trained workman, and at no time would he compete with the European.

(Roberts 1905, p. 804)

However, with more education, Africans became restive and resisted colonialism. Schools became places for political unrest as Africans sought to end colonialism. The British also seemed to regret and doubt whether they had achieved their aims. Those who participated in the Phelps-Stokes Fund (an organization made of British and North American educators who focused on Africa) observed that mission boys represented “the futility and harm of educating natives away from ‘their place’ in the colonial scheme arranged by western civilization for the Africans. (Jones 1925, p. 249 as cited in Yamada 2008, p. 23).

4. British and North American Influences on Educational Policies in Colonial Africa

Aspects of colonial education were adapted or imported from Britain and North America (Yamada 2008). This importation should not come as a major surprise, especially as the missionaries, merchants, and colonial administrators came from those countries. Missionaries from Britain and North America, for example, took it upon themselves to go and educate Africans (Armah 1972; Bude 1983). To a great extent, North American policies had a bigger influence in the education policies in colonial Africa. In the Southern United States, Jim Crow Laws were regarded as the norm, and the Plessey vs. Ferguson decision of 1896 (also referred to as Separate but Equal) left Blacks vulnerable to the whims of White Americans, and schools as well as other public institutions, remained segregated. Plessey vs. Ferguson, to a great extent, provided the blueprint for apartheid education in South Africa, and the normalization of racial segregation in schools.

Scholars observe that in the 19th and 20th centuries, American models of industrial education were imported to many African colonies (Persianis 1996; Yamada 2008). After the emancipation of slaves, the United States sought to educate African Americans, but with the type of education that would make African Americans subservient to Whites. As Fosdick put it, “if the white southerners had to permit the Negro to obtain any education at all, they wanted it to be of the sort that would make him a better servant and laborer, not that which would train him to rise out of his place” (as cited in Yamada 2008, p. 26). That racial component was transferred to the education in the colonies, especially in South Africa. South Africa was colonized, first by the Dutch, then the British (Chisholm 1983; Paterson 2005). Each introduced a different educational system.

According to Loram (1927), there were similarities between the racism in South Africa and the United States since educators claimed that the “backwardness of the Southern States in the United States is partly attributable to the presence of masses of uneducated Negroes, who are dragging down the whites to a lower level, socially, politically, and economically. Signs of similar degeneration on the parts of the whites in South Africa are not wanting,” (p. 12). Several legal measures were put in place to make it difficult or almost impossible for African children to get a quality education in British colonies.

One of the ways for disenfranchising Africans or denying them access to education was through prohibiting them from voting. Without the right to vote, Africans had no mechanisms for redressing the challenges that African children faced regarding quality education. Because the economic situation demanded that Africans be dependent on a cash economy, most found themselves with their labor as the only commodity they could trade (Chisholm 1983; Johnson 1982). At times the labor pool was such that Africans worked almost for free, while their children could not afford an education. In other words, African parents could rarely afford to spend time with their own children because they were providing cheap labor to Europeans living in the colonies. Loram (1927) observes:

Visitors to South Africa are struck by our complete dependence upon cheap Native labor. No one is too poor to afford a Zulu ‘boy’ to do housework which is done by mothers and daughters in the European countries; the ‘boy’ carries the schoolgirl’s satchel of books to school and the workman’s bag of tools.

(p. 11)

While South African blacks provided cheap labor, there were additional legislations that made it difficult for Africans and African children to have access to the same resources as Europeans in British colonies. The Natives in Urban Areas Bill of 1918 restricted areas where Blacks could live. The legislation was later replaced by the Group Areas Act. The legislations governing race relations in South Africa and most of the British colonies closely resembled those in Separate but Equal legislation based on the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision in the United States (Roche 1951). Roche (1951) viewed Separate but Equal as “the prototype for the current apartheid program of the Union of South” (p. 219).

Just as was the case in the United States, in British colonies, racial segregation was, for the most part, presumed to be the norm. Beittel (1951) viewed segregation in schools and in life as a form of ostracism designed to keep Blacks at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. It created and supported a racial caste system that divided the nation, and indeed, the world. However, there were other long-term and unintended consequences. Margo (1986) contends that the achievement gap, to a great extent, can be traced to Separate but Equal. According to Margo (1986), “low black incomes, wealth, and high rates of adult illiteracy helped sustain a significant racial achievement gap even if separate-but-equal were reality instead of myth” (p. 794).

The struggles for racial integration and school desegregation in the British colonies in Africa closely mirrored those in Britain, even those dealing with the Irish (Hickman 1993). The Anglicization of White children who were not British was carried out in South Africa as well. After the British settlers defeated the Dutch or Afrikaans, Dutch ceased to be the language of instruction, and the curriculum in schools was drastically changed (Johnson 1982). Thus, in many ways, schools normalized whiteness as the standard by which children could have access to quality education, and whiteness was generally reserved for White and British Europeans. A person was British, not by virtue of citizenship and birth, but largely by the color of their skin. It should also be noted that leading British intellectuals of the day championed colonialism as a way to contain the race problem in Britain (Curry 2009). For Curry, Royce’s disposition toward Blacks was firmly rooted in a “colonial and assimilationist logic that that ultimately sought the cultural destruction of African-descended people” (2009, p. 11). There was thus a concerted effort to deculturize Africans while conditioning them to provide labor to Europeans. Often, there were attempts to provide a benevolent spin to colonialism, but these often fell short when the realities were presented.

One of the main purposes of education was to turn African children into people who would yearn for what was the best in British culture or to turn them into anglophiles. Mahatma Gandhi, who had considered himself an Indian and a member of the British Empire, quickly found out when he arrived in South Africa, that racism prevented him from enjoying what was reserved for Whites in South Africa. His education and mannerisms, his knowledge of English law, his craving to serve the British Army during the Zulu War, did not open the doors into the community of Whites in South Africa. He was an anglophile but was not part of the community. Years later, Mandela was to admit that “the educated Englishman was our model; what we aspired to be were “black Englishmen”, …. We were taught-and believed-that the best ideas were English ideas, the best government was English government, and the best men were Englishmen,” (1994, p. 37). Deculturalization was part of the educational process, and it sought to show African students that British culture was infinitely better, and worth emulating (Armah 2008; Wa Thiongo 2012). Mandela, like many other Africans who underwent British colonial education, experienced the seductive but deceptive nature of that education. Reflecting on his being awarded his undergraduate degree, he observed that he was already on his “way to being drawn into the black elite that Britain sought to create in Africa,” (Mandela 1994, p. 97).

5. Racism, Education, and African Children

To a great extent, the struggle for the education of African children in the colonies (as well as in Britain and the United States) was contested at both global and local levels. That is to say, there were people who fought to maintain segregation, and some who fought against it. Although British and United States policies at governmental level tended to support and enforce racism, there were places for contesting both colonialism and racism. As Blacks in Britain and the United States attained education and formal literacy, they formed different associations to champion the causes of Black children. Even the different Pan-Africanism Conferences were initially in Britain, and they brought into focus the challenges Blacks faced at a global level (Killingray 2009).

However, it should be noted that the level of organization that opposed racism and segregation was generally outside the structures of recognized national governments. That is, those who were members of anti-racist or anti-colonial movements rarely came as delegates of either the United States or the British governments. Conversely, it was not uncommon for social scientists and government policy makers to base their decisions on a comparative study of race relations and education (Curry 2009). Frederickson, for example, studied racism in South Africa and the United States. Likewise, those who designed Bantu education or apartheid education in South Africa based their policies on what they had observed in the United States and in Britain. In explaining the mission and purpose of apartheid education, one of its designers, Dr. Verwoerd stated:

When I am controller of Native Education I will reform it so that the natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them ... The Bantu must be guided to serve his own community. There is no place for him in the European community above certain forms of labor.... Education must train and teach people in accordance with their opportunities in life-according to the sphere in which they live.

(Birley 1968, p. 153, as quoted in Johnson 1982, p. 219)

It becomes apparent then, that one of the primary purposes of educating African children in the colonies was to condition them to accept positions of service and inferiority, based on their race. Addressing legislators in South Africa, the chief administrator of the Transvaal Province pointed out that the South African government “must win the fight against the non-White in the classroom instead of losing it in the battlefield” (Onderwysblad 1961, as cited in Johnson 1982, p. 214). Schools often became a battleground for the souls of the nation, and students played a leading role (Molteno 1987). National governments did not hide the fact that they used education to structure and control society, that education was, in a way, a tool for social engineering (Bowles and Gintis 1976; Johnson 1982). This re-engineering of society was based on and designed to teach Africans about the place to which they belonged in relation to Europeans. Education, as it were, was to shape the political, social, cultural, and economic direction of the colonies. Education, in so far as it molded or prepared children for their future roles, reinforced and reproduced racist structures.

A significant number of teachers in the colonies also came from Britain and the United States as well as other European countries (Armah 2008; Johnson 1982). Many of these teachers had also been trained under systems that were based on the racism and racist ideologies of the day. Fully aware of the advantages enjoyed by Europeans in Britain and the United States, such educators argued that “education for whites must fit them to maintain their unquestioned superiority and supremacy” (Johnson 1982, p. 216). One quickly realizes, then, that African and European children in British colonies did not receive the same education: one was taught to serve, the other to rule (Kros 2002). That was how colonial society was envisioned. Expenditures for the education of White students were generally ten times higher than those for Black or African students (Behr and Macmillan 1966).

6. Colonial Curriculum and Social Reproduction

The power of the curriculum to shape the economic, social and political futures of students has been documented by several scholars, (Appel 2004; Armah 1972; Collins 2009; Steans and Tepe 2010). Among those who studied the sociology of education or the curriculum, it became apparent that the curriculum played a huge role in social and economic reproduction. Collins (2009) observed that there was a direct connection between educational experiences, economic life, and ways of living, especially in North America and England. As such, many questioned the idea that education and schooling could bring about social and economic transformation. For Foucault (1984), “Any system of education is a political way of maintaining or modifying the appropriation of discourses, along with the knowledges and powers which they carry” (p. 123, as cited in Christie 1990, p. 37).

Although schooling and education were often marketed as a way for upward mobility, it would appear as if there was an expected limit to how high African students would climb, especially considering the racism that undergirded colonialism. Critical sociologists questioned the veracity of the purposes of the curriculum, observing that “schooling practices, in particular curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation, were themselves related to the unequal patterns of social power” (Christie 1990, p. 37). Over time, African students in British colonies realized the stumbling blocks posed by education (Christie and Collins 1982; Morrow 1990).

For educational sociologists, it was important to understand that “in essence schooling is organized to provide individuated, technical knowledge to select strata of consumer-workers, largely white, middle class, and compliant” (Collins 2009, p. 37). Although Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) and Bowles and Gintis (1976) studied schools in Europe and North America, their observations on education and social reproduction are applicable to the context in colonial Africa, especially given the extent to which European and North American curricula were adapted in Africa. The model of industrial education that was exported to Africa, for example, was based on the education at Tuskegee and the Hampton Institute (Yamada 2008). In addition, it was not uncommon for the American specialist to serve as an expert on educational issues in Africa and the colonies (Persianis 1996; Whitehead 1981). The racial caste system that was prevalent in North America prior to the Civil Rights Act was exported to Africa, with apartheid providing a mirror-image of Plessey vs. Ferguson. Within apartheid:

A de jure racial hierarchy divided the population into four groups: whites, Indians, coloureds, and black Africans. Rights and benefits were allocated according to this hierarchy, with whites being most advantaged and black Africans being most disadvantaged. As with every aspect of social, political, and economic life under apartheid, education was racially stratified.

(Teeger 2015, p. 228)

For the most part, curriculum practices in British colonies were almost consistent, whether it was Ghana (Boampong 2013), Nigeria (Bude 1983), East Africa (Beck 1966), or Southern Africa (Appel 1989; Booth 2003; Brookes 1930). Writing on curriculum and education in South Africa, Christie observed:

Curriculum control has been an integral part both of the South African education system, and of its contestation. From the State’s side apartheid education has always been the strict definition of what State schools and what the organizing principles of the curriculum should be.

(Christie 1990, p. 38)

7. The Colonial Curriculum

Granted the emphasis on industrial education that was designed for Africans, the curriculum was largely designed on vocational trades or skills, even from elementary education. In most schools, gardening was part of the curriculum. However, it was mostly the growing of vegetable gardens, rather than flower gardens that was encouraged. Bude (1983) observed that many boarding schools had their own gardens and cash crops. Although the gardens and crops could be used as evidence of the success of industrial education, the produce also helped meet the needs of the students, especially at a time when African schools received very little funding from the government.

Among the main subjects taught to African students included agriculture, poultry, vegetables, orchards, hygiene, first aid, handcrafts, carpentry, home economics, cooking, dressmaking, and, bricklaying (Booth 2003; Bude 1983). Such subjects were designed as part of early vocational training, and in many ways, were meant to prepare African children for the service, manufacturing, and agricultural sectors (Spivey 1978). Different vocational trades were made available to boys, and others to girls, thereby introducing an element of sexism. Girls, for example, were encouraged to study housekeeping, cooking, sewing, and child-care. While the curriculum was designed in Europe and North America, the colonial governments acquiesced:

It was easy for the colonial powers of Africa to relish a philosophy of education and life that stood for black acquiescence and obedience to the status quo. Tuskegee students-or ‘Captains of Industry’ as Booker T. Washington liked to call them-were welcome in Colonial Nigeria, the Belgian Congo, South Africa, and throughout British East Africa in the early twentieth century.

(Spivey 1978, p. 2)

The access to vocational and/or industrial education was not meant to help Africans succeed or show their skills above their European counterparts (Maylam 2001; Shepherd 1965). The underlying assumption, as far as academic achievement was concerned, was that Africans could not gain mastery in ‘bookish subjects.’ There was no expectation that Africans would compete for positions with the colonizers.

Even with the emphasis on industrial education, there were occasions when African students were offered an academic curriculum. Among the subjects were English, History, Religious Knowledge, Latin, (African language) Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Geography, Physics, and Chemistry (Omolewa 2006). All these subjects, other than African languages, were taught from a colonial perspective, and for the most part, English was the medium of instruction. Success or passing English language was considered an integral part of being considered successful in the examinations. Because of the academic curriculum’s focus on Europe and North America, there was a tendency to portray African countries as traditional and backward, while Europe and North America were viewed as modern and developed.

Extra-curricular activities, including sports, were also segregated, and some were available to European or White students, while others were available to both Africans and European students. The earning potential as a result of playing in those sports, should students want to turn professional, was also very different (Grier 1999). Cricket, rugby, tennis, hockey, and polo were generally for White students. Soccer, netball, volleyball, track and field events, on the other hand, were open to all students, although they had a considerably lower earning potential (Davies 1986).

8. Early Independence: Decolonization and the Rebirth of Indigenous Knowledge

After the attainment of political independence, many former British colonies began to change their educational systems, focusing on nation-building and reconciliation. Almost all the newly independent countries began a process of decolonizing knowledge and education (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017). Kenya, a former British colony in East Africa, adopted the policy of Uhuru (Mazrui 1963; Tembe 2013). The emphasis was on helping Kenya develop, especially for populations that had been marginalized, including those in the rural areas. Through the educational philosophy of Uhuru, a new emphasis on human rights and indigenous cultures was encouraged (Mawere 2015; Press 2015).

Tanzania, on the other hand, embarked on Ujamaa, an educational philosophy slightly modeled on socialism, but made to address African or Tanzanian realities, (Ibhawoh and Dibua 2003; Raikes 1975; Schneider 2004). The hope, then, was that socialism would reverse decades of underdevelopment and segregation. Schools and education were envisioned to play a huge role in the development of the nation. However, Ujamaa also assumed a Pan-Africanist dimension, and Tanzania dedicated most of its resources to advancing sub-Saharan countries (Ibhawoh and Dibua 2003).

For South Africa, apartheid was replaced by Masakhane, a philosophy designed to help South Africans work together. Masakhane (let us build each other up) was meant to negate apartheid or segregation (Mandela 1994). Mandela invited South Africans from all racial groups (as well as the international community) to help address the challenges the nation faced as it emerged from colonialism and apartheid.

9. Conclusions

The education of African children in British colonies was problematic, mainly because of a somewhat deceptive nature. It promised advancement and upward social mobility, but in reality, trained them for subordinate roles in societies where racism was legal (Kraak 1991). While African children could yearn to be British (aspiring to be Englishmen, in the words of Nelson Mandela) that avenue was closed to them, especially under apartheid. Reflecting on her education under conditions which privileged racism, in words eerily reminiscent to those of Mandela, Salazar observed:

In the third grade, I desperately wanted to be White. My teachers privileged whiteness through the English language and U.S. culture, and they excluded all that was native to me; hence, I ascertained that White children were smarter, more attractive, and affluent. As a result, I became a connoisseur of whiteness when I was eight years old.

(Salazar 2013, p. 122)

Although colonized by the British and having adopted almost everything that was British (language, religion, sports, politics), African students remained outsiders, even if at times optimistic with regard to the opportunities available through education (Dube 1985; Jansen 1996). Africans who survived British colonial schooling expressed a yearning for a more humanizing education (Hammett and Staeheli 2013). At the same time, they recognize their inability to solve African problems, mainly because colonial education was not designed to make conditions better for Africans. The emphasis on industrial education for African students, however, leaves one pondering: was there more to the purposes of the colonial curriculum which could develop their human potential instead of reducing them to mere laborers? Colonial education, as it were, resulted in the creation or making of a new African, an anglophile whose values were shaped by a new educational system that negated what it was designed to deliver. Under colonialism, every educational system and every colonial institution had, as its purpose, the remolding of the African child.