Haile Selassie, 1967AP
In 1974 a military revolution overthrew the emperor. Ethiopia declared itself a socialist state and proclaimed that socialism would permeate all aspects of the society. The government’s stated aims of education were (1) education for production, (2) education for scientific consciousness, and (3) education for social consciousness. Political alliance with the Soviet Union influenced educational reform. Polytechnical education, which emphasizes familiarizing children with the important branches of production and acquainting them with first-hand practical experience, was widely introduced by Soviet educational advisers. A number of Ethiopian students were sent to the Soviet Union or Eastern-bloc countries for higher education or to Cuba for schooling at the secondary level.
The structure of the Ethiopian school system remained unchanged from that established in the late 1950s. Children began the 12-year program at age seven. Grades one through six make up the primary cycle, seven through eight the junior secondary cycle, and nine through 12 the senior secondary cycle. Students who passed the Ethiopian School Leaving Certificate Examination at the end of grade 12 were eligible for higher education, but space in the country’s colleges and universities was limited. Liberia
Education in Liberia, the oldest republic in Africa (1847), was distinctly different from that in any other African country. Liberia was founded by freed slaves from the United States, and its educational system was modeled on the American system. Public primary and secondary schools were established in the 19th century for the children of the settlers, but there was little money to extend schooling into the interior of the country for the indigenous people. Church schools were also established. The Western-style schools trained Liberians in the new settlements for work in offices. A few students were prepared for the legal or theological profession.
In 1912 a centralized educational system was established under a cabinet-level official, but, except for the establishment of a few secondary schools and colleges, nothing of importance happened until the end of World War II. In the prewar period, three-fourths of the schools were either private or mission-run. Economic growth and the interest of Pres. William V.S. Tubman in the 1950s resulted in a greater extension of education for indigenous Liberians. The educational system was organized to provide preprimary education for children ages four and five, six years of elementary education for children ages six through 12, and three years each of junior and senior high school. Postsecondary education could be pursued at three leading institutions: the University of Liberia, sponsored by the government; Cuttington University College, administered and financially supported by the Episcopal church with some financial aid from the government; and the William V.S. Tubman College of Technology. The educational expansion started by Pres. Tubman in the 1950s, however, reached only a small fraction of the people.
William V.S. TubmanCamera Press/Pictorial Parade
David G. Scanlon
South Africa
From the time of the first white settlements in South Africa, the Protestant emphasis on home Bible reading ensured that basic literacy would be achieved in the family. Throughout the development from itinerant teachers to schools and school systems, the family foundation of Christian education remained, though it was gradually extended to embrace an ethnic-linguistic “family.”
Despite some major 19th-century legislation on the administration of education (1874 in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, 1865 in Cape of Good Hope, 1873–77 in Natal) and some early efforts to establish free schools, political and linguistic problems impeded the development of public education before 1900. Natal had gone furthest in affirming government responsibility for education and setting up the necessary administrative machinery, but, by and large, provision for schooling remained voluntary and piecemeal until the beginning of the 20th century.
The South African War (1899–1902; also called the Boer War) suspended educational development entirely and confirmed the resolve of each white South African group to protect its own cultural prerogatives. When the Union of South Africa was created in 1910, it was a bilingual state, and thus both English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking schools were established for white Europeans. Furthermore, a political tightness and separateness increased among the Afrikaners after the war and strengthened their tendency to exclude nonwhites from the cultural and political life of the dominant society. The trend toward separate schools for linguistic and racial groups became a rigid practice in most of South Africa after union.
Church mission schools attempted to replace the preliterate tribal education of native Africans in the South African colonies. Established from 1789, they were dedicated to converting the indigenous peoples to Christianity and generally inculcating an attitude of service and subservience to whites. These schools spread from 1823 to 1842, and colonial governments made occasional grants to them from 1854. Some mission schools included a mixture of races but, by and large, segregation was established by custom. Although some exemplary schools followed rather liberal social and curricular policies, most schools held to narrowly religious content in their curricula. The mission schools were virtually brought into the state system through government subsidies and through provincial supervision, inspection, and control of teaching, curriculum, and examination standards.
By the time the union was formed, the new provinces had each established school systems, structured mainly for European children but including provisions for other groups. Specific arrangements varied, but basically the systems were headed by a department of education under a director and controlled through an inspectorate. Three of the provinces had school boards that localized the department administration. Compulsory-attendance regulations were being effected for European children, while separate school developments were under way for other groups. The language of instruction had been established provincially, with both Afrikaans and English in use.
The South Africa Act of 1909 left the control of primary and secondary education with the provinces, while reserving higher education to the union government. The Union Department of Education, Arts, and Science became the central educational authority and expanded its responsibilities by accepting control of special sectors such as vocational, technical, and artistic education.
In 1922, when the Phelps-Stokes Commission on education in Africa offered its report, South Africa’s example in the development of liberal and adaptable educational provisions for Africans, particularly in Natal and Cape Province, was held up for emulation. The passing of the tribal system was noted and efforts toward interracial cooperation complimented. It was obvious, however, that little of value to Africans was being done in the European-model schools and that noteworthy educational efforts were associated with special institutions, such as Lovedale School and University College of Fort Hare in the Cape.
Concern over African education in the 1940s led to the creation of the Eiselen Commission, whose report in 1951 accorded with the separatist racial views of the government that came to power in 1948 and laid the groundwork for subsequent apartheid (“apartness”) legislation in education. That legislation included the Bantu Education Act of 1953. The National Education Policy Act of 1967 and a subsequent Amendment Act in 1982, along with the Constitution Act of 1983, also reflected apartheid policy. The provinces incorporated national policy into their own legislation and administration.
Fundamentally, the system of apartheid rested on three assumptions: (1) that each cultural group should be encouraged to retain its identity and develop according to its “unique” characteristics, (2) that, with a population of diverse racial-social groups, the way to ensure peaceful coexistence and general progress was through legal and institutional separation, and (3) that the only agency capable of exercising overall responsibility for this development was the central government. Implementation of apartheid policy led to a near-total separation of educational facilities for white, black, Coloured (mixed-race), and Indian (Asian) populations, with resulting divergence of opportunity between the extremes of black and white education.