.

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1
COLONIALISM, INDIGENOUS SOCIETY,
AND SCHOOL PRACTICES: FRENCH WEST
AFRICA AND INDOCHINA, 1918-1938
Gail P. Kelly
The literature on colonial schooling has provided a wealth of information
about educational policy. school structures. enrollment patterns, and, to a
lesser extent, social background characteristics of students, the demands on
education made by the colonized and the long-term effect of colonial
schools on societal structures.! Little research has focused on what was
taught in schools. Scholars have long supposed that the knowledge distrib-
uted by the schools represented some diluted version of metropolitan educa-
tion and that any variation in school practices could be attributed to
differences in the European power that instituted the schools. Thus, we are
led to believe that variation in educational content would be expected only
between, say, British or French colonies and that educational forms and
practices were divorced almost entirely from the society and cultures in
which the schools were placed. Some research has implied that such a view
may not be warranted, for the practices of different colonia1 powers in a
similar context Seem to converge-as Asiwaju found in Western
land-and those of a single colonia! power, as Ashby noted in the case of
universities in Africa and India, diverged.
2
Why this is the case, however)
is yet to be explained.
This chapter focuses on. school practices in two French colonial federa-
tions-French West Africa and French Indochina-in the period 1918-38.
Although it compares educational structures and enrollment patterns, the
major emphasis will be on what schools taught. I will show how education
in Africa and Indochina differed at the level of practice and will argue
that such divergences are attributable to the complex interaction between
France and the sociopolitical organization of indigeneous society. (French
weSt Africa [l'Afrique Occidentale frangaise or AOFjas a federation con-
9
10 Education and the Colonial Experience
sisted of eight colonies: Senegal, Soudan [contemporary Mali], Dahomey,
Upper Yalta, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger, Dakar and dependencies, and
Mauritania. Indochina consisted of five pays: Annam, Cochinchina, Ton-
kiD, Cambodia, and Laos. In AOF and Indochina, direction of education
tended to be vested centrally.) . '
The discussion that follows is based on government reports as well as a
comprehensive analysis of texts in use in the schools, curricular guides, and
student class notebooks.
EDUCATIONAL STRUCTURES
The colonial school systems of French West Africa and Indochina were
put in place by 1918, although they underwent some minor reforms in the
1920s. The ways in which the schools were organized were quite different
in the two areas. In Indochina, the 1918 Code of Public Instruction provid-
ed for the full gamut of elementary through university education.' Elemen-
tary education was a three-year course consisting of the COUTS enfantin. the
eours pre para loire, and the eours e/emenlaire. It was followed by a \hree-
year primary cycle (cours moyen 1, COUTS moyen 2, COUl'S superieur). Post-
primary education was also part of the system and consisted of a four-year
primary superior course followed by three years of secondary education that
led to the "Indochinese" baccalaureat. A university, consisting through the
time period of anywhere between three and eight faculties, crowned the
system. Promotion to each level, from elementary through u!liversity edu-
cation, was contingent on successful passage of competitive degree examina-
tions administered by, in the caSe of elementary and primary education,
each pays, and for all post-primary education, by the Indochina-wide Office
of Public Instruction in Hanoi. The different levels of education were pro-
vided in a multitude of different kinds of schools, based in part on met-
ropolitan models. The elementary cycle was given in, three-year elementary
schools, full primary schools that included the primary cycle, and in colleges
and lyeees.that offered post-primary education as well.
The organization of education in West Mrica sharply contrasts with that
of Indochina.
4
Until the mid-I92Os, it consisted of three levels of primary
education: a three-year preparatory course (equivalent to Indochina's one-
year cours preparatoire) given in a village school; a four-year elementary
school that repeated the preparatory couse of the village school and the
eours e!ementaire; and a four-year regional school that offered the eours
moyen. After 1924 this system was streamlined and rationalized. The village
schools were to .offer in three years the preparatory course and send their
best students who were the sons of chiefs or notables to the four- to six-year
regional school that would teach the elementary course, the cours moyen.
Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 11
and in some cases (although not always) the cours superieur. In each colony
after 1924 a primary-superior course, admitting only those under the age
of 17, was established with three sections: one emphasizing general studies
(required for sons of chiefs), another that prepared only the brightest for
entry into Ecole William Ponty, and a third section that emphasized voca-
tional training and, apprenticeShip programs.
At the apex of the educational system were the federal schools that
specialized in vocational preparation. These schools included training for
midwives and medical assistants, teacher preparation, and training in river
piloting and mechanics. Until the 1920s they recruited their students direct-
ly from regional schools. After 1920, students for the teacher-training
school (Ecole William Panty) were required to have attended primary-
superior school before taking an entry examination, and medical and veteri-
nary students were expected to complete a preparatory course of three years
at the Ecole William Panty before admission to the program.
In West Africa no secondary education for Africans was developed
outside the Lycee Faidherbe in St. Louis and the secondary course at Dakar.
These two programs were attached to metropolitan schools and open only
to French citizens and the originaires of the four communes in Senegal who
had access to French primary education. The government did consider
opening secondary education for Africans for a brief period. In 1919 a lycee
was opened in St. Louis only to be shut down two or three years later in
favor of the development of primary-superior schooling.s Compared to
Indochina or to France, the school system of West Africa lacked objective
criteria for student selection. No centralized degree examinations existed.
Students were recruited into schools solely on the basis of ascriptive criteria.
Political authorities insisted that the schools serve almost exclusively the
sons of chiefs and notables, and school authorities were called upon to
sustain this elite through the years of primary education.
6
Educational
judgments based on objective criteria like grades or performance on degree
examinations were somewhat alien to the system and reluctantly intro-
duced. Most degrees, in f a c ~ were school-specific. Several colonies did
institute primary certificate examinations, but possession of such degrees
was not mandatory for gaining entrance to a primary-superior school or to
the federal schools. (The federal schools did run their own entry examina-
tions, but they also recruited by quota from each colonie. ) Unlike education
in Indochina, or for that matter in France, education in West Africa lacked
centralization, nor was it bureaucraticized or particularly based on meritoc-
racy.
Not only were there differences in the organization of the schools in
French West Africa and Indochina, even more striking were differences in
the numbers of students the schools in each area served. In Indochina,
12 Educaiion and the Colonial Experience
especially in the three pays that had comprised the pre-colonial nation-state
of Vi etnam-Ann am, Tonkin, and Cochinchina-education reached one in
every .10 school-aged children; in West Africa, the schools
4.7 in every 1,000 children according to the most optimistic French esti-
mates.' By 1938 in the Vietnamese states of Tonkin, Cochinchina, and
Annam, 287,037 students were enrolled in g6vermnent schools. Of these,
150,812 attended elementary schools; another 129,020 were in primary
school. But 4,552 attended primary-superior schools; another 400 were in
the secondary coorse. Post-primary vocational schools took in another
2,253 students. In 1937, the university population stood at 631.9 In West
Africa, 25,595 attended village schools, 21,996 were in regional schools, and-
another 7,944 in urban schools. More precisely, 56,135 atterided elementru:y
and primary schools. The eight primary-superior schools took in 717 stu-
dents; the Ecole William Panty had a student body of 220. Another SOl
attended technical schools.!o
WHAT TIlE SCHOOLS TAUGHT
\
It was never the intent of colonial schoolmen to teach Asians or Africans
to be French, although a sizable number of Asians and Africans demanded
that they be provided French education. Colonial pedagogues in both areas
sounded very much alike, waxing eloquent about the futility of teaching
metropolitan curricula. Georges Hardy, the most influential of West.
Africa's inspectors of primary education, b1untly stated his doubts about the
educability of Africans. In his 1917 book, Une Conquete morale, he insisted
that education draw from the African milieu and its wealth of songs,
folklore, and dance.
lI
Any curriculum that stressed abstract knowledge, as
far as he was concerned, was too complicated for Africans to grasp, was a
waste of time, and, worse, might cause major problems. Hardy's basic
conception of tea,hing Africans to be Africans, although they were still to
be fluent in practical French and loyal to France, pervaded curriculum
development and pedagogical thought through the interwar years. "Scien-
tific" studies of the mental capacities of children of a multitude of African
peoples-the Gourondsi, MaHnke, and so on-conducted in the 1930s and
published in the federation's pedagogical journal, confirmed in less explo-
sive language Hardy's allegations.
12
The 1924 curricular reforms echoed
such thought as did various manuals for newly arrived metropolitan teach-
ers posted to West Africa's schools. 13
The pitfalls of teaching metropolitan curricula that educators in West
Africa articulated so clearly were stated as bluntly in. Indochina, especially
when it came to teaching Vietnamese. Colonial politicians and pedagogues
perceived Vietnamese as "big children/' prone to excesses and troublemak-
. Colonialisrn, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 13
ing. Their mental capacities were deemed limited, but in ways different from
those of Africans. French pedagogues believed Vietnamese tended to convo-
lute everything. Metropolitan education was sure to be misconstrued by
plotting, devious, glib Vietnamese.
I4
Although colonial educators in both areas shared a general conception
that education should depart from that of the metropole, the way in which
it did so was quite different in Indochina and West Africa. Table 1 presents
instructional time allotted to teaching school subjects for elementary and
primary education in both interwar Indochina and West Africa. On out-
ward appearances, the schools in both areas seem to have emphasized
similar skills-in particular, language arts. In West Africa, at least on
paper, the school day was longer than in Indochina (30 hours a week versus
27 hours a week). In addition, the schools in Africa seemingly placed
greater emphasis on French language skills and mathematics and slightly
less on science . IDoral education, manual labor, and physical education. The
time spent teaching school subjects, however, does not reflect differences in
what was taught or the levels of work demanded of students.
One of the most striking. curricular differences between French
Africa and Indochina was in the language of instruction. In West Africa,
all education was given in French. In Indochina, the first three years of
education were given in the mother tongue, regardless of whether it was
Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, or Meo. .
Vietnamese, Khmer, and Lao were written languages; their scripts tradi-
tionally, however, were not based on the Latin alphabet. The French invest-
ed a great deal of time and money reforming Vietnamese. The language had
been written in the Chinese characters; the French used a version
transliterated into the Latin alphabet in the schools. They spent much time
and money standardizing the writing system and developing a literature as
well as sets of textbooks. No such effort was put into Khmer and Lao-the
schools taught in the traditional script. Rhade and Mea, which were lan-
guages of minorities, had no prior writing system; but the French, having
embraced the notion of instruction in mother tongues, developed one, which
they diffused through the few schools for minorities.
Although the mother tongue was the language of instruction for the first
three years of education, all post-elementary education was given in French.
In the three Vietnamese states, the Vietnamese language was taught in the
primary and primary-superior schools as a school subject. In addition,
primary-superior and secondary education offered the student options of
studying Far Eastern c1assicallanguages, among which were Chinese, Pali,
and Sanskrit. For a period of time in the 1920s, the law school of the
Indochinese University was converted into a School of Indochinese Studies
that emphasized the teaching of local languages and their literature.

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Colonia1ism, Indigenolls Society, and School Practices 15
Although education in Indochina encouraged instruction in the mother
tongue as well as.in French, in West Africa, the possibility of education in
mother tongues was never entertained, hot because most mother tongues
lacked a writing system (although this may well have been a reason thought
of after the faet), but rather because the mission of the schools was con-
ceived in a way entirely different from that of the schools of Indochina.
Education in Indochina was perceived of in terms of mass education. ,In the
words of Albert Sarraut, governor general as well as architect of the inter-
war schools, education was meant to provide Vietnamese with a "simple
education, reduced to essentials, permitting the child to learn all that will
be useful to him to know in his humble career of farmer or artisan to
ameliorate the natural and social conditions of his existence."lS The train-
ing of an elite was not aradoxically, ven the broad range of edUCatiOn
ava e, t e major concern. In French West Africa, on' the other hand,
education was not directed at the masses. The schools taught in French
because the primary mission of the schools was to diffuse spoken French
among those who were, by birth, destined to become an elite.'" No one
spoke of education as providing any useful skill exce t the ability to speak
Frenc un I the depth of t e depressIon In the 1930s. Elementary and
j;riDlaiY education was for local elites that would assist the French in ruling
West Africa. All these elites really needed to know was how to communi-
cate with Frenchmen. African languages were forbidden in the schools.
Except in two specialized medrasas(schools), no attempt was made to teach
a "classical" language in use in the region. Arabic never had the status of
Chinese, Sanskrit, or Pali.
The schools of Indochina and West Africa could indeed be distinguished
by their language of instruction and the place of indigeneous language in
the curriculum, but they were worlds apart when it came to educational
standards imposed by the French colonial government. In Indochina the
schools stressed literacy, despite the seeming lesser amouots of school time
devoted to literacy training. In West Africa, the emphasis was on spoken
French, and literacy skills were considerably downplayed. Reading and
writing, Davesne, an inspector of primary education and author of a good
many school texts written especially for West Africa, maintained in the
introduction to one of his language primers, were secondary to oral skills
and were to be taught only to break the monotomy of continuous instruc-
tion in conversational French.
17
In village schools few students were ex-
pected to learn to read or write in their long stay. Village school books were
"The students who got through them were expected to read at
most 13 lines of simple French relating only to everyday life. These primers
were full of readings on the necessity of bathing oneself and of descriptions
of markets, clothes, and the like in extremely simply sentences.l
8
Many a
16 Education and the Colonial Experience
student who reached regional school was illiterate, simply because the
schools did not teach literacy. An exemplary student. Paida'Moussa, in the
second year of regional school at Kaya could barely write a five-sentence
French composition. In 1929) his teacher singled him Qut for praise for the
following composition:
What I do at school. I come [misspelled] to school to learn to become
instructed. I learn [misspelled] to read, to write. to count. 1 work well. I apply
[misspelled] myself.l9
Paida was an exceptional student: he could write an intelligible six-
sentence essay in French with only three mistakes, and he was o ~ l y 10 years
old. Most students matriculating into regional schools were sponsored by
virtue of their father's status and were between 12 and 14 years old.'o They
may have been able to do as the schools taught them-speak and under-
stand spoken French, but they could not write the language.' First-year
students at the regional school at Ouagadougou could not compose sen-
tences. nor were they required to.2lln West Africa, there was little educa-
tional rigor and the schools did not attempt to teach students very much
beyond spoken French. .
Although in Indochina elementary education might have been taught in
the mother tongue, students entering the primary grades could read and
write French and do it well. By the .second year of elementary school,
Vietnamese students kept notebooks and wrote long, somewhat insipid
essays." In primary school their French writing skills were far superior to
those of their African peers. For example, Hoang-Khai-Mac, in a school in
Bac Kan Province in Tonkin, which was in a provincial center like the
school at Kaya, wrote a two-page French essay on why he attended school.
Part of his essay follows:
I must work at school: 1) to please my parents. My parents send me to school
because they believe I will work arduously there. They make many sacrifiCeS
to keep me in school. If! waste my time in class I will abuse [misspelled] their
confidence; 2) in order to respond to the sacrifices my country and the French
protectorate had made [for me]. In effect our country has created many high
quality schools. France has sent us professors to train knowledgeable .teach-
ers. These two countries have spent much money . .. . 3) to respond to the
efforts of OUf teacher .... 4) to respond to my own self interest which is to
have the means to earn easily a living. For these reasons, it is necessary to
attend school regularly. I will work assiduously.2J
Hoang was 11 years old and in the second year of primary studies.
In short, although schools in West Africa devoted more time to teaching
Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 17
language arts, particularly French, they de-emphasized literacy skills. Viet-
namese students, with less exposure to the language, learned at least to read
and write, and a much higher level of work was demanded of them.
Not only were there differences in school emphasis on literacy, even in
mathematics the schools of West Africa taught little to their students. In
West Africa, students entering the cours moyen in regional schools were
taught addition and subtraction and were just beginning to receive instruc-
tion in multiplication. By the courseliimenlaire in Indochina students had
mastered all four operations and did complex word problems. By the cours
moyen in IndocWna students were expected to do algebra and geometry.24
It is somewhat doubtful whether tho. differences in acadeinic standards
in the two colonial possessions can be attributed to differences in the mental
abilities of students in the two areas. The differences, as daily instructional
logs available for the two areas for the 1929-30 school year indicate, were
very much a function of what schools chose to teach. In West Africa, for
example, math instruction never attempted t6 progress in the primary
grades regardless of whether a student had mastered the material. At the
school at Kaya, for example, students in the cours moyen did the same math
problems as those two years behind them . .8oriba Laroara, a second year
student in the preparatory course, did the same math problems, with as
much accuracy as William Wilson in the second year of primary studies at
the regional school at Conakry.2S In Indochina, the schools taught more
and demanded more, perhaps with an eye to making school an uncomfort-
able place and discouraging a sizable proportion of the student body.
Although differences in academic expectations and rigor are evident,
curricular content in the two areas diverged in what was taught about
indigenous society and culture and the role that those who succeeded in
school would be called upon to play in their society.
CURRICULAR MESSAGES: TEXTS
Colonial pedagogues, as was pointed out earlier, were unanimous thatl
the schools should not focus their teachings on France. but rather on the i
society and culture of those who went to school. The history and geography I
to pe taught was local. School texts and curricular materials in both areas
were specifically designed to teach students about their own societies. Lan-
guage primers in both colonies were fllied with readings depicting every-
thing from houses to clothes to markets, rituals, and folkways of the
colonized. The texts in use in Indochina and West Africa followed similar
formulas in terms of grouping instruction, regardless of grade level for
which they were intended, around centers of interest-the school, the
human body, families, housing, villages, trades, and. ending the year,
18 and the Colonial Experience
France. This progression was mirrored, in the weekly curriculum gUides
published in Indochina's pedagogical journals, as well as in countless texts
in Vietnamese and French.
'\ School texts, especially at the primary level, in both colonies stressed the
differences between colonizer and colonized but did so in different ways in
West Africa and in Indochina. In West Africa, the differences we(e pre-
sented in racial terms and, while paternalistic in tenor, were minimized.
Typical is the following, excerpted from a 1934 text, Mon Ami Kolli. which,
like all other primers, dealt with blacks and whites, taking care to suggest
that race was not terribly important;
We are born in Africa. Our skin is black, our hair curly, our lips
We very much love our country, grand sunlight, our huts, 'our markets,
and OUf festivals.
We know how to do many things. We cultivate QUr fields. tend our flocks,
weave cloth. We make pots. we work leather
t
we know how to dye it.
Other men are born far away from our country. Their skin is white. their hair
is straight, their lips are thin.
They very much love their country. but they also love ours ...
They know how to do more things than us. We buy from them beautiful cloth,
soap, basins and lanterns ....
There are whites. there are blacks. but there are things other than color which
are important.
Black skin, white skin, it's nothing.
What counts is our qualities. As everyone says: the blacks have many good
qualities.
Be honest and work hard, never lie. These qualities are more beautiful than
the color of our face.
26
Similarly the text noted differences in dress, housing, and food preparation
between the two races. But texts always observed that whereas whites were
different from blacks, through education and years of patient help, these
differences could be overcome.
It is interesting to note that when the texts in West Africa compared
whites and blacks, they avoided discussion of cultnral or national contexts.
When the texts compared the two races, they discussed whites in Africa and
rarely touched on French culture or society. This was not the case in school
texts in Indochina, which did not discuss differences between the yellow and
Colonialism, Indigenous'Society, and Scbool Practices 19
white races, but rather the differences between Vietnamese culture, society,
and nationhood and those of France, often heightening these differences as
if to Vietnamese society at every turn. Vietnamese houses Were
compared to French chateaux, and reading after reading pOinted out their
flawed construction and the "routinized," "Chinese" mentality that led to
such "miserable, n "crude" dwellings.
27
Vietnamese cities were compared to
French cities, as in the following excerpt-and judged unhealthy.
What distinguishes at first sight French towns from Vietnamese is the width
of the streets. Whereas native towns have only windin& narrow, dingy streets,
French towns are crossed by a number of very large and straight streets,
boarded by sidewalks, often planted with trees. These are avenues and boule-
vards. .
The Vietnamese alleys are badly paved, flooded in the least bit of rain. and
inserted between low, dirty houses. rrhe houses] are pressed against one
another [and] dark and unhealthy with poor ventilation. In French towns, on
the other hand, the houses are well planned, large, tall with several stories.
[They have] many windows which allow air and light to enter the rooms.
28
Vietnarnese,traditional schools were compared to French schools, and pre-
colonial government and its administrators were held up for derision. Their
knowledge and skill were "childlike"; they were "devious," and in "total
infancy about anything that is remotely close to the most elementary eco-
nomic question."'9 The following, which appeared frequently in curricular
guides, is typical. It describes why France was forced to save Vietnamese
from their own political elite and their unfortunate propensities.
Through a well trained police force that does not harass the local population
and the deployment of an anny sufficient to maintain order everywhere.
France has put an end to thefts and acts of piracy which had desolated
Vietnam in the past. Every person can now devote himself to his work without
fear of being plundered by scoundrels, especially the government. ... France
wants all the natives to be knowledgeable of their rights and duties and no
longer be at the mercy of all the parasites who tonnented them in the past.
France wishes especially to protect the people from themselves and their Own
'shortcomings such as gambling, excessive superstitions of all sorts and their
love of chicanery which ruins their savings and their health.3
0
The texts were one long litany against the Vietnamese elite and the Viet-
namese personality.
In West Africa, the school texts avoided head-on assaults on Africans
or their leadership, past or present. While the texts nccasionally alluded to
the unfortunate precolonial they were also quick to point out that the
misfortunes that had befallen the black man were not his fault.
3
!
20 Education and the Colonial Experience
Not all primary-level texts in West Africa and Indochina focused on the
differences between colonizer and colonized; such allusions were relatively
muted in West Africa as compared to Indochina, where they accounted for
the cantent of over half of all instructional materials.
32
A sizable part of the
texts, more so in West Africa than in Indochina, were confined to descrip-
tion supposedly of students and their milieu. In West Africa such materials
often took care not to comment adversely On what they portrayed. The texts
abounded with descriptions of villages, feasts, music, wild life, and the like.
Often they touched on practices most Frenchmen viewed as at best primi-
tive, at worst, abhorent-like polygamy. But the texts presented them
neutrally, albeit sometimes through the cold eye of the anthropologist. In
Indochina, although inany such anthropologically inspired materials ap-
peared, they invariably pointed out that the aspects of society they described
were primitve, decadent, or archaic. The differences in the depiction of
everyday life in school curriculum become apparent in the two excerpts
below. The fIrst, from West Africa, describes markets and is part of the
curriculum for the last year of regional school:
On the streets and all through the town there is extraordinary activity and
nothing is more exciting than to walk several moments ttu:ough the num,erous
which are held from morning to nightfall in different parts of the
town.
The women are there, squatting, crowded very close to.one another,
in front of them their merchandise displayed in a basket or On a mat. Tlle
buyer moves with difficulty through this crowd" Everybody talks, shouts, ,and
it makes a deafening din. One finds everything there: food products, trumpery
goods, and food dishes that have been prepared in outdoor kitchens)l
A reading on a similar topic, for the last year of primary school in Indo-
china, used derogatory language and stressed not the activity of the market
or the goods for sale, but rather superstitious Vietnamese women.
Vietnamese women often turn to the world above, especially those who spend
their days running from one market to another to buy there and resell else-
where and earn often a supplement to feed a brood [the tenn used is nichee,
referring usually to a brood of mice or puppies] of children. A noise, an
unexpected cry of a rooster, a rat, or a crow, the fall of a spider are for them
manifest signs of the intervention of spirits and their devotion isn't quickly
. shown ... }4
School texts at the primary level in West Africa and Indochina not only
focused on description of jndigeneous society, they also taught about
pations and roles students would play adults. In what was ironically a
Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 21
more rigorous and general academic program than in West. Africa, in
Indochina the texts were monolithic in orienting students toward
ture or unskilled manual labor. Reading after reading glorifIed the peasant
and his water buffalo and inveighed against the evils of the city. One such
poem called upon the reader not to heed "the voice that will tell you about
the city and its wonders,;' which "give less than they promise.'! Many caned
on students to take upa trade; still more urged students to return to the
plow." 1
What is striking in the primary curriculull?- in Indochina as compared
to of West Mrica is and total absence of textual mat.erials
orienting students toward white-collar work. If one looks at curncuIar
guides for the period 1925-38, but two of the 360 selections commended for
classroom use ever alluded to white-collar 'occupations; the two that did
were scarcely flat!ering-one was about how poets starved.l6 In West
Africa, the texts actually promoted white-collar work, often associating
schooHng with it. Monod's, widely used primer, Deuxieme Livret de l'ecolier
nair, intended for the last year of village school, contained the following:
I go to a village school. When r learn to speak, read and write French and
to count well, my teacher will send me to the regional school. There I wiU
continue to work and learn. I will prepare for my primary certificate in order
to enter the Groupe Central [primary-superior school]. When I am 16 or 17
years old I will sit for the entrance examination for normal school so I can
become' a teacher. My classmate Ali likes machines. He wants to become a
mechanic. He will go to a vocational school and much later become a good
worker. Here Blacks who want to work hard have every opportunity to
become educated. There are schools which prepare them to become teachers,
school aides, doctors, nurses, telegraphists, interpreters, typists, carpenters,
smithies. farmers, etc.
l7
Later in the same text, careers in administration are discussed. While they
are inevitably presented as subordinate to a French administrator, they are
nonetheless portrayed as being powerful. "Native" administrators., Mo-
nod's comments> '"are intelligent Black
Most have gone to schoo1. Scribes and typists write in offices. The interpreter
knows several languages. The kadi renders justice. '. and pronounces judg-
ments}8
This view contrasts sharply with the images of native administrators in
Indochina, who were presented invariably as backward, superstitious, self-
seeking, "hostile to aU progress," and as parasites, "despots," and the like.
39
Although the primary texts in West Africa presented a broader array of
occupations that the educated African could assume, several tests did orient
22 Education and the Colonial Experience
students toward manual labor and agriculture, although in a less monolithic
way than in Indochina, and this choice was proffered only to those who
decided voluntarily not to continue their studies. Imbert's 1934 text, Mon
Ami Koffi, written in the height of the depression, presents a boy who is
good but has no intention of continuing his studies. He searches about for
an occupation knowing "well . . . that he, will never be an author or a
teacher. He must work with his ten fmgers." Koffi then explores a range
of jobs, including tailoring, masonry, potting, and weaving. He rejects them
for farming because he likes "healthy work. He can live outdoors, he can
start work when he wishes, he can finish it when he wants to. "40
It would be misleading to state that primary-school texts invariably
opened a wide range of options for their students. In a few rare instances
the texts were ambivalent about Africans who dressed like Europeans and
wished to aSSume roles reserved for the ruling French, outside of traditional
society. The Moussa et Gi-gla, in theory a self-contained course for the
last year of regional school, displayed such a tendency. It contained two
passages that made it clear that Africans, outside of local society, were to
be subservient to the Freuch. Moussa and Gi-gla's wanderings around
French West Africa form the subject of the text These two characters are
primary-school graduates who take jobs as "boys," serving a European
trader and subsequently a French army' officer. As they travel the federa-
tion, they see the diversity of the peoples and economic life. At one point
in the book, they reach Dakar. There Moussa meets his former school
teacher, Mr. Gilbert, who is delighted to see Moussa and is eveu more
overjoyed to learn that Mo,,"sa has accepted employmeut as a "boy."
This really pleases me, said M. Gilbert, for it is impossible not to love the man
who becomes a servant when he is deserving of praise. The differences be-
tween the races is of little importance. Goodwill has no color. There is, on
the contrary. an advantage for a Black ,to be in the service of a White man
because White men are more educated, more advanced in civilization than
Black men and Black men, thanks to Whites, can make the most rapid
progress, learn better and morc quicly know morc things and become ODe day
truly useful men. On their part, Black men render services to Whites by
helping them with their muscles to execute projects" of al1 kinds the Whites
have undertaken, in CUltivating fields which sustain COmmerce and also in
fighting for France in the ranks of the native troups. Thus, the two races
associate with each other and work in common for the prosperity and well
being of aU.41
By the end of the text, their travels over, Moussa becomes a farmer and
Gi-gla joins the army.
While this particular text hardly encouraged Africans in the way that
others in use in the schools did, it is significant to note that the passage cited
ColOnialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices
23
above is the sale one of its kind in the texts in use at the time. In West Africa,
the primary-school curriculum did not promote farming and the trades as
monolithically Or with as great an intensity as in Indochina.
CURRICULUM AND THE COLONIAL CONTEXT
The differences in school practices in West Africa and Indochina under
French rule are striking. Iu Indochina a comprehensive school system was
established that reached broader segments of the population than the
schools of West Africa did, imposed rigorous academic standards and was
highly selective. In West Africa, education was, if not labeled ;8 such, a
system of elementary and primary education. The full range of post-primary
education, not to mention higher education, never evolved or was foreseen
in interwar years. The schools reached ,a very small population, sys-
temaltcally downplayed literacy skills, imposed few standards, and refused
to apply meritocratic criteria 'in student selection.
. th.e school curriculum in both areas focused on teaching about
mdlgenous SOCIety, they were worlds apart in how and what they taught
about them. In West Africa, the schools were careful to present indigenous
society in the most glowing terms possible and.assiduously avoided charac-
terization of Africans as primitive or basically flawed and in constant need
of being saved from themselves or their leaders. In fact, the schools took
care not to cast aspersions on the African traditional elite and presented
that elite as Uintelligent" and "responsible" regardless of whether they had
attended school. In Indochina the curriculum presented almost diametrical-
ly opposed images of the society and its leadership. School texts mounted
a full-fledged attack on the Vietnamese nation. Never did they attempt, as
curricula of a similar level in West Africa did, to state, "The difference
between the races is of little importance." Rather, in the texts in Indochina,
the spotlight was on every conceivable flaw in both the society and the
individuals in it. If the texts are to be believed, Vietnamese could not even
make good pareuts. Education alone could not save Vietnamese from them-
selves. The curriculum went out of its way to discredit the Vietnamese elite I
and Vietnamese autonomous institutions. The texts made no bones aboutl
it: the country was the Vietnamese elite decadent despots, and the
people backward, superstlt1Ous, and prone to chicanery. In Indochina the
schools, unlike those in West Africa, discouraged students from expecting
their education to articulate with the power and status in the colonial order.
Students were monolithically oriented toward manual labor and farming;
they never were led to believe that schools would prepare them to be
teachers, doctors, assistants to French administrators, judges. or the like,
as the texts in West Africa did.
24 Education and the Colonial Experienoo
The differences in school practices cannot be explained idiosyncratically.
They were not a function of what educators or politicians perceived as the
state of culture of those they ruled. French administrators drew many
comparisons between the colonized in both areas, for a sizable number in
their careers served in both places and openly marveled at the accomplish-
ments of pre-colonial Vietnam. In the same breath one such administrator
pointed to perceived corruption and ignorance of the African elite.
42
Such
attitudes seemed reversed in the school texts.
Purely economic needs also cannot fully explain the differences in school
practices. The economy of Indochina was no more healthy than that of
West Africa. The metropole consistently floated loans to keep the colony
and its schools solvent and did so in the midst of burgeoning expansion of
all levels of education. In indochina, unemployment among school gradu-
ates at all levels became a concern as early as 1920; and the government
continued to double and triple school places. In West Africa there was a
chronic shortage of trained personnel, yet the government made few at-
tempts to stimulate the growth of schooling.
43
.
One way that the differences in French school practices in Indochina and
West Africa might be explained is in reference to the differences in mean-
ings that education had traditionally conveyed in the societies in which the
schools were placed. It was no accident that schooling in Indochina wa.s
most widespread in the Vietnamese states and that the schools focused on
teaching about Vietnamese and their nation in such negative terms. In
Indochina, a prime motivation for establishing colonial schools was related
to establishing French control over oppositional culture to colonialism. In
Vietnam that oppositional culture in large part had its locus in pre-colonial
scbools, which persisted despite French harassment through the interwar
years. (In 1924 alone, over 1,800 of these schools were forcibly shut
down.)44 Prior to the French conquest, Vietnam had a national school
system that reached the vast majority of the population. The schools were
secular, taught Vietnamese written in Chinese characters and basic Confu-
cian ethics, and legitimated a unified Vietnamese state and its monarchy.
They also functioned to select an elite. Success in schooling and on national
examinations led to positions of real power and authority in state service.-
Pre-colonial schools not only served to integrate the nation, spread the
ideology of meritocracy, and associate education with the right to rule; they
also had a history of mobilizing the peasantry against the state when it
became oppressive beyond bounds or for the state when it was threatened
by foreign incursions. These'prewcolonial schools teaching Vietnamese writ-
ten in Chinese characters-and their teachers-had been the mainstay of
the military resistance to the French.
French political authorities were well aware of the political significance
I
I
j
I
I
Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 25
of Vietnamese indigenous schools. The many meetings of the Council for
the Improvement of Native Education that spanned 1908 to 1913 consist-
ently debatedthe need to eliminate these schools not only because they were
backward, but because of their tendency to meddle in politics.
45
In Cam-
bodia and Laos, where indigeneous education was religious, focusing only
on the other world and seemingly unrelated to the nation-state, the French
neither outlawed such schools nor were particularly active in promoting the
spread of the colonial schools.
The way the schools in the Vietnamese states of Indochina evolved can
be considered a French response to Vietnamese society and the meanings
education held for a broad cross-section of the population. It was not
feasible politically to withhold mass education from a society that had had
such a system in place for hundreds of years. If the French wished to
transform the meanings associated with schooling, they had to provide
schools to do so. Where colonial schools were not established, traditional
schools tended to re-form, according to a 1934 report, "uncontrolled and
uncontrollable, teaching anything .... "46
The French not only extended their schools in order to counteract effec-
tively Vietnamese traditional schooling, the medium and content of educa- .,'.
tion reflected similar considerations. The language of instruction in the first
three years was Vietnamese for political reasons. Early deliberations about
the language of instruction were clear on this point. French educators
argued often that the Vietnamese language was illogical, incapable of con-
veying science, imprecise, and underdeveloped. Yet the schools were called
upon to teach in it, and the poured resources into standardizing
its transliteration into the Latin alphabet and developing texts in it. The
reasons were political: if the schools were to reorient Viemamese society to
anew pohhcal order;-students had to be able to understand what the schools
would teach. Education was to be "useful" and to orient students to their
localities, not to the nation-state of the past or to power within a new
French-fabricated Indochina.
Although the French opted to teach in Vietnamese, the Vietnamese the
colonial schools taught was not the written language indigenous schools had .
taught. The reformed script, while no doubt an efficient means of teaching
literacy in the language, as the only Vietnamese taught, cut future genera
tions off from their own national literature, which was written in Chinese
characters, as well as from the thousand years or so of Chinese influence.
While the fact of indigenous schools and the role they had played in
Vietnamese society hnpelled French policymakers to develop mass educa-
tion in the mother tongue, it also affected deeply the content and rigor of
education. Although it was easier to get into school in Vietnam than in West
Africa, school was rarely a pleasant place, and it was relatively hard for
26 Educat1ion and the Colonial Experience
students to remain in school. A rigorous curriculum was deliberately put
in place, with highly competitive degree examinations to discourage large
!
numbers of students. Those who were lucky enough to stay in school after
the elementary grades were continually bombarded with a curriculum that
sought to detach students from affective ties with their nation and V,et-
namese leadershipj and the curriculum sought to dissociate education from
national service and from social mobility. In short, the curriculum was
directed toward undermining the very reasons Vietnamese demanded edu-
cation. These schools provided the upper levels of education, even a univer-
sity, as Vietnamese, in reaction to the education offered them, described by
many as one designed to produce "ya-yas" and "underling clerks," attempt-
ed to enter French schools both in the colony and in the metropole in order
to make new educational forms play traditional functions in terms of access
to power, wealth, and leadership in their society.47
In West Africa. French school practices were no less politically driven.
but given the societies that composed the colonial federation, and the mean-
ings traditionally associated with education. the French did not feel com-
pelled either to build a mass education system or to use the schools to break
down potential or real oppositional political culture. In West Africa. the
locus of olitical culture was never vested in schoolin nor-was the opposi-
tional culture to French rule. Although t ere were educational forms pre-
dating the French intrusion into West Africa, they were not associated with
temporal affairs, the integration of a nation-state, or the recruitment of
leadership. The Koranic schools that were functioning through the north-
ern and central parts of French West Africa were considered by the Fr,mch
backward. but benign. institutions. No attempt was made to supplant them.
In other parts of the colonial federation, where Koranic schools were
nonexistent, indigenous education was not formalized, was highly localized,
and was unrelated either to elite recruitment or to a state. In no part of West
Africa was there a national school system predating the French. Colonial
schools were never intended to substitute for indigenous ones; they were
intended merely to supplement indigenous schools to train local elites.
Unlike Indochina. where a large nation-state had a relatively stable
existence in a territory comprising one-half to two-thirds of the colonial
federation. French West Africa was characterized by a multitude of rela-
tively small-scale societies. often in competition with one another. Many of
these societies were hierachically organized solely on ascriptive criteria. The
._ ideology of meritocracy was not well entrenched, especially in relation to
--' education. The colonial administration in West Africa based itself on the
traditional African elite and did what it could to bolster their status. School-
ing was designed for them alone and was offered almost as a reassurance
that no competing groups would challenge their lluthority if they cooper-
Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 27
ated with the colonial system. School populations were for the most part
heterogeneous, recruited from local elites. Care was taken not to admit the
masses or to in any way conjure up fears that the indigeneous elites would
have to compete to maintain their position within local society. The SChOOISl
thus deliberately restricted enrollments to a narrowly targeted population,
refused to introduce cOID.petitive examinations that would sort out individu- ~
als on the basis of merit. and relaxed curricular standards to make the elite's
first-hand contacts with colonial institutions a pleasant, s t r e s s ~ f r e e experi-
ence. The relaxation of standards may have been designed to gain loyalty
or keep it from eroding. The schools attempted to prevent the development
of oppositional cultures among those it served. not only by making school
a pleasant place. but also by refraining from adverse commentary on stu-
dents' culture and society. The curriculum found little but praise for the
African and downplayed the significance of the obvious differences between
colonizer and colonized. It implied that with education all differences
would disappear and Africans would have every opportunity to participate
fully in the colonial order. The schools wooed the African elite and prepared
them for local leadership. Those the schools trained did not expect educa-
tion to prepare them for leadership in French West Africa, a colonial
fabrication.
This chapter has argued that colonial educational practices were strongly
influenced by the societies in which the schools were placed. It has shown
that the interplay between the French and the political cultures of African
and Asian societies was important in determining the medium, content, and
distribution of education. And it has suggested that where schooling had
traditionally played a role in integrating a nation-state, as in Vietnam.
education initiated by a colonial power took a fonn dislinct from that
instigated by the colonizer in societies in which indigenous forms were tied
to religious rather than secular functions and divorced from the mainte-
nance of a nation. Further research that attends to education at the level
of practice is necessary before such a generalization can be shown adequate
in explaining the variation in the educational heritages left by colonial rule
throughout the Third World.
NOTES
Note: The following abbreviations have been used in the notes below:
AOM:
BEAOF;
BGlP ..
JOAOF;
Archives Nationales de France, Section Outre-Mer
Bulletin de l'ElIseigneme1Zt de I'A/rique Occidentale Francaise
Bulletin General de l'lnstructi01l Publique (lndochille)
Journal 0fficiel de rAftique Occidentale Franfaise
. .
28 and the Colonial Experience
JOIF: Journal Officiel de L 'Indochine
1. See e.g. Philip Foster, Education and Social Chl!nge in Ghana (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1965); Apama Basu, The Growth of Education and
Political Development in India, 1878-1920 (Delhi: Oxford University Press.
1974); Philip Loh. Seeds of Separatism: Educatioll Policy in Malaysia, 1874-
1940 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975); Denise Bouche, L 'En-
seignemeJtt dans les territoiresfram;ais de l'AJrique Occidentale de 1817-1920
(Paris: Champion, 1975); R6mi Clignet and Philip Foster. "French and British
Colonial Education in Africa," Comparative Education Review, 8 (Oct. 1964);
19198.
2. Prosser Gifford and Timothy Weiskel, HAfrican Education in a Colonial Con-
text: French and British Styles," in France and in Africa: Imperial
Rivalry and Colonial Rule, ed. Prosser Gifford and William Roger Louis (New
. Haven: Yale University Press, 1971). pp. A. J. Asiwaju. "FonnaL
Education in Western Yurobaland, 1889-1960: A Comparison of the French
and British Colonial Systems," Comparative Education Review. 19 (Oct. 1975):
434-50; Eric Ashby and Mary Anderson, Universities: British, Indian, African
(Cambridgej Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966).
3. Gouvemement General de l'Indochine Franr;aise, Direction Generale de
struction Publique, Code de l'Instruction Publique. 21 die. 1917(Hanoi:
primerie 1918); see also Blanchard de la Brosse, Une Annie
de rejormes dans I'enseignement en Indochine, 1924-25 (Hanoi: Imprimerie
d'Extreme-Orient, 1925).
4. This discussion of the schools of French West Africa is based on Exposition
Colonia]e Internationale de Paris, Commissariat de ]' Afrique Occidentale
Franl(aise, L 'Enseignement en Afrique Occidentale FranfOlSe (Paris: Librairie
Larose, 1931); Gouvernement General de l'Afrique Occidentale Franr;aise,
Service de l'Enseignement, Textes portant reorganisation de l'er,zseignement en
Afrique Occidentale ler ma; 1924(Gor6e: Editions du BEAOF, No.
S7, 1924)j 31 dec. 1923, Circulaire du Gouverneur General sur I'Enseignement
(signe Carde), JOAOF, 2oeAnnee, No. 1008 (26janv. 1924), pp. 69-71; 1 mai
1924, Circulaire sur la reorganisation de l'enseignement. JOAOF. 20e Ann&:,
No. 1024 (10 mai 1924), pp. 30916.
5. See 1 nov. 1918, Arrete fixant l'organisation generale de l'enseignement en
Afrique Occidentale Fran",",e, JOAOF, 14e Annee, No. 728 (16 nov. 1918),
pp. 572-7; 20 juin 1919, Decret porlant creation d'un lycee a Saint-Louis
(Senegal) (Arrele de promulgation du 18juiUeI1919), JOAOF, 15e Annee, No.
764 (26 juiUet 1919), pp. 46972; 1 avril 1921, Arrete ",organisant I'Eeole
William Ponty, JOAOF, 17eAnnec, No. 860 (30 avri11921), pp. 31922; 1 mai
1924, Circulaire sur la reorganisation de l'enseigiIement, JOAOF. 20 e Annee,
No. 1024 (10 mai 1924), pp. 30916.
6. This was stated continuously. See esp. 5 oct. 1917, Circulaireau sujet d'un plan
d'action scolaire (signe Van Vollenhoven), JOAOF, Be Anm!e, No. 670 (6 oct.
1917), pp. Assomption (Inspecteur des Ecoles). Circulaire sur
plication de l'arrete du ler mai 1924, BEAOF, 13e Annee, No. 61 Guillet-dec.
1925), pp. Assomption, "Conseil aux ma1tres: Circulaire au sujet du
recrutement," BEAOF, 120 Annee, No. 55 Ganv . jujn 1924), pp. 59-61.
7. See e.g. "Rapport statistique d'ensemble pour l'annee scolaire, 1934-35/'
Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 29
L 'Education A/n'caine, 25e Ann6e, No. 93 1935), pp.
vernement General de l'AOF, Amtualre Statistique de p. 29.
8. Gouvernement General de I'Indochine Frangaise, Rapports au Grand Conseil
des inlerelS coJlomiques etfinanciers et au COllseil de Gouvernement, deuxierne
partie: Fonclionnement des diverS services indochino;s, Session Ordinaire de
]938 (Hanoi: Imprimerie d'Exlreme-Orient, 1938), Table 5.
9 . Ibid., 1937, Table 9.
10. Gouvemement General de l'AOF, Annuaire Statistique de /:AOF(193338),
ch. 3, p. 29.
11. Georges Hardy, Une Conquete morale: l'ellseignement en AOF(Paris: Armand
Colin, 1917).
12. See e.g.lssa Kane, "L'Enfant toucouleur," BEAOp,21e Annee, No. 79 (avril-
juin 1932), pp. 91-98; G. Cyrille, "Enquete sur l'enfant noir en l'AOP: Ie petit
dahomeen," BEAOF, 21e Annee, No. 79 (avri1juin 1932), pp. 7990; R .
Lamye, "Enquete sur l'enfant nair en Afrique noire: renfant agro," REAOE.
21e Annee, No. 80 Guillet.dec. 1932), pp. 199210; P. Blanluet, "Enquete sur
l'enfant nair de l'AOF: l'enfant gourounsi," READE 21e Annee, No. 78
1931), pp. Fity Dabo Sissoko, UEnquete de l'enfant nair de
l'AOF: l'eofant bambara," BEAOF, 20e Annee, No. 76 Guil1et.sept. 1931), pp.
3-24; Y. Imbert, "Enquete sur I'enfant nair en Afrique Occidentale
l'enfilDt malinke," BEAOF, 20e Annee, No. 75 (avriljuin 1931), pp. 3-12;
Benjamin Gbaguidi. "Enquete sur l'education dans la societe indigene,"
L'Education Africai"" 260 Anne., No. 96 Ganv . juin 1937), pp. 4857.
13. Gouvernement General de l' Afrique Occidentale Franc;aise, Service de l'En-
seignement, Textes porlant reorganisation de I'Enseignement en Afrique Oc-
cidentale ier mai i924 (Goree: Editions du BEAOF, No. 57,1924);
L. Sonolet and A. Peres. Le Livre du maitre africain a l'usage des coles de
village, 2e ed. (paris: Armand Colin, 1923); J. L. Monod, Instructions au
personnel enseignant qui debute dans les ecoles de I'A/rique Occidentale Fran-
faise. Editions du Bulletin de l'Enseignement de r AOF (Goree: Imprimerie du
Gouvernement General
7
1921).
14. See e.g. Henri Gourdon, L'Enseignemenl des indigenes en Indochille (paris:
Societe Generate d'Imprimerie et d'Edition Uve, 1910); Mat Gi6i (Crayssac),
"Lettre de Mat Gi6i/' L'Avellir du Tonkin. 30e Annee, No. 5438 (6 mars
1913), p. Ij H. Simard, Le Livre des illstitutcurs annamites (paris: Ch. Dela-
grave, c. 1920); J. Pandolfi and Notions de pedagogie aux
instituteufs et aux instflutrides indl'genes.(Saigon: Imprimerie J. Viet. 1925): J.
A. Bertrand, "Etude psychologique de l'enfant de I'Indochine: l'intelligence,"
BGIP, partie generale. 18e Annee, No. 10 (juin-aout 1938).
15. Sarraut is quoted in "LaVille: ouverture de la 4e session du Conseil de perfec-
tionnement de l'enseignement indigene," L 'Avenir du Tonkin, 30e Annee, No.
5466 (9 avri11913), p. 3; He repeated this over and over again. See Compte
rendu sommaire de la session ordinaire de 1917 du Conseil de Gouvemement
de ['Indochine, seance du 13 novembre 1917, JOIP. 30e Annee, No. 79bis (2
oct. 1918), pp. esp. pp. xii-xiii; and "Uue Circulaire de M. Albert
Sarraut sur Ie developpement de l'enseignement indigene." L.'Asje
21e Annee, No. 188 Ganv. 1921), pp. 2325.
16. See e.g. 5 oct. 1917, Circulaire as sujet d'un plan d'action scolaire (signe Van
Vollenhoven), JOAOF, 13eAlUlee, No. 670 (6 oct. 1917), pp. 531-34; Assomp-
30 Education and the Colonial Experience
tion, "Conseil aux maitres: Circulaire au sujet de recruternent," BEAO, 12e
Annee, No. 55 Ganv.-juin 1924), pp. 59-61.
17. A. Nouveau syllabaire de Mamadou et Bineta a ['usage des coles
africaines(Paris and Strasbourg: Istra, 1934). See also J. L. Monad, Instruc-
tions au personnel ellseigllont qui debute dans /es koles de l'Afrique Occidentale
(Goree: Gouvernement General de l' Afrique Occidentale Fran<;aise,
Service de Editions du Bulletin de l'Enseignement de l'AOF.
1921); J. L. Monad. PremIer Livret de !'ecolzer noir: lecture-ecriture-Iangage
correspondant au programme des eco/es de village de l'AOF(Paris: Ch. Dela-
grave. 1929). pp. iii-iv.
18. Examples of these primers are Davesne; Monad; Louis Sonolet and A. Ped:s,
Methode de lecture et d'ecn"ture de l'eeolier afri'cain (Paris: Armand Colin,
1915); J. L. Monod. Deuxieme Livret de J'ecolier noir: longage et lecture (carre.
spondant au programme de langage des co/es de vii/age de l'Afrique
de 1'0uesl) (Paris: Ch. De1agrave, 1926): R. Imbert, Mon Ami Koffi (livre de
lecture caurante a l'usage des eco/es a/ricaines, cours (paris: Ferdi-
nand 1934); A. Davesne, Mamadou etBineta lisent etecriventcouram-
ment (Paris: Istra, 1931).
19. Cahicr de Devoirs, Patida Moussa. Ecole RCgionale de Kaya. entry of 14 oct.
1930. AOM, 46 PA, carton 4, dossier 19.
20. See e.g. Cahier de Devoirs. Tinnoago Eguire. Ecole Regionale de Gar<;ons de
Conakry. AOM 46 PA. carton 4. dossier 18bis; Dcyoirs Journaliers. Nakro
Valoulau, Ecole de Koudougou. annee scolaire 1930-31, ADM. 46 FA, carton
4. dossier 20; Cahier de Routement. Ecole Regionale de Ouagadougou, annee
scolaire 1930-31, cours elementaire,lere annee, AOM, 46 PA, carton 4. dossier
20. In these notebooks students listed their ages. which were far older than
government age-specific requirements provided ror.
21. Cahier de Roulement. Ecole Regionale de Ouagadougou, annee scolaire 1930-
31, cours elementaire. lere annee. AOM. 46 PA, carton 4. The Cahier de
Roulement was a class notebook. "Each day the teacher gave a different student
the book and required him/her to write the day's assignments in it. School
inspectors often used the Roulement to check teachers' work-what they were
teaching and how they graded their students-and wrote comments on the
teachers' comments to their students. There is an excellent collection of both
the Roulement and the individual student notebooks for each grade level for
the school years 1929-30 and 1930-31 for a series of schools in West Africa
and in Indochina in the French Overseas Archives in the series 46 PA consist-
ing of approximately nine cartons.
22. See e.g. Cahier de Roulement. Ecole de Plein Exercisede Hai Hau. Nam Dinh.
cours preparatoire, anm!escolaire 1928-29. AOM. 46 PA, cartOn 9, dossier 93;
Cahier de Routement. Ecole de Lang-Van (Tonkin). annee scolaire 1929-30,
cours preparatoire, AOM. 46 FA. carton 9, dossier 92; Cahier de Devoirs
Mensuels, annee scolaire 1920-30, Ecole de Plein Exercise de Gan;ons, Prov-
ence de Bac Kan. COUTS 61ementaire et preparatoire. AOM, 46 PA. carton 9,
dossier 85; Cahier de Compositions Hebdomadaires, Nguyen-Giae, Ecole de
Plein Exercise de Gar<;ons de Bac-Ninh (Tonkin), cours preparatoire B., 7,
Sept. 1929-29 mars 1930, AOM, 46 PA, carton 9, dossier 86.
23. Cahier de Devoirs MensueJs, Hoang-Khai-Mac, Ecole de Plein Exercise de
Gar'tons. annee scolaire 1929-30; AOM. 46 PA, carton 9. dossier 85.
24. Cahier de Devoirs. cours 6lementaire. 2e annee, Ecole R6gionale de Gar'tons
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
Colonialism, Indigenous Society, and School Practices 31
de Conakry, William Wilson. annee scolaire 1930-31. AOM,45 PA, carton
4. dossier 18bis. (An entry in September presents the following math problems:
8-3 = 9-3 = , 3+6 =.) See also Cahier de Roulement. Ecole Regionale
de Ouagadougou. cours moyen 2k. annee scolaire 1930-31. AOM, 46 PA.
carton 4. dossier 20. These should be compared to the mathematics instruction
in Vietnam. Le-The-Den in the cours enfantin did the following math problem
on 29 sept 1929: 31 + 23 = . Cahiers mensuels, 1929-30, cours enfantin,
Ecole Brieux it Hanoi. AOM) 46 PA. carton 9, dossier 88j multiplication was
done in the cours preparatoire, see Cahier de Devoirs Mensuels. annee scolaire
1929-30, Dao Thinh Duyet, 11 mars 1929, Ecole de Plein Exercise de
cOurs elementaire et preparatoire. AOM, 46 PA. carton 9, dossier 85; for
geometry problems in the cones moyen, 2e annee, see Cahier de Devoirs. No.
2. annee scolaire 1929-30, (student) Nguyen-Kinh-Phoung, No. Mie 1547. 39
ocl 1929-21 dec. 1929, Ecole de Sinh Tu, AOM, 46 PA,
carton 9, dossier 91.
See Cabier de Devoirs. cours preparatoirc. 2e annee, Ecole Regionale de
Gar<;ons de Conakry, (student) Soriba Lamara, annee scolaire 1930-31, AOM,
46 PA. carton 4. dossier 18bis; Cabier de Devoirs. cours elementaire, 2e annee,
Ecole Regionale de Gar<;ons de Conakry, (student) William Wilson. anm!"e
scolaire 1930-31, AOM, 46 PA, carton 4, dossier 18bis.
RObert Imbert, Mon Ami Koffi (livre de lecture a /"usage des ecoles a/ncaines) .
(Paris: Ferdinand Nathan, 1934), pp. 32-33.
See "Enseignement primaire," BGIP. partie scolaire. 13e Annee, No.2 (oct.
1933), pp. 90-105; ibid., 4eAnnee, No.6 (fev. 1925), p. 330; ibid., lleAnnee,
N? 8 (avril 1932), p. 626; ibid., 4e Annee, No.6 (fev. 1925), p. 330; NgO-Duc-
Kinh and Nguyen-Huy-Hoang, Le au eours preparatoire (Hanoi:
Imprimerie Trung-Bac-Tan-Van, 1936).
"Enseignement du ler degre: coues moyen et cours superieur. programme du
6e mois," BGIP, partie seo/aire, 3e Annee, No.6 (fev. 1924). p. 288.
UEnseignement primaire," BGlp, partie seo/aire. 7e Annre. 7 (mars 1929).
p. 423. See also ibid., 60 Anne., Nos. 5-6 Ganv.-fev. 1927), p. 223.
"Enseignement primaire." BGlp, partie scolaire. 4e Annre, No.5 Ganv. 1925).
p.276.
See e.g. "Textes et lectures." BEAOF. 1ge Annee, No. 72 (avril-juin 1930), p.
10.
For a complete analysis of curricular guides in Indochina, see Gail P. Kelly.
"Colonial Schools in Vietnam: Policy and Practice," in Education and Colo-
nialism, ed .. P. G. AItbach and G. P. Kelly (New York: Longmans, 1978), pp.
96-121.
Te.tes et lectures, BEAOF, 13e Aune., No. 60 Ganv.-juin 1925), pp. 74-75.
"Enseignement primaire." BGIP. partie seolaire. 12e Annee. No. I (sept 1932),
p.34.
See e.g. "Enseignemcnt primaire," BQIP, partie seolaire, 8e Annee. No.5 Ganv.
1929), p. 306; ibid., 10e Annee, No.2 (oct. 1930), pp. 145; ibid., 8eAnnee, No.
6 (fev. 1929); IIEnseigncment du premier dcgre ... BGIP. partie seolaire. 4e
Annee, No.6 (fev. 1924), p. 81.
See Kelly.
Mondd, Deuxieme Livret de l'6eolier noir: lallgage et lecture (eorrespondant au
programme de langage des ecoles de village de l'Afrique de tOuest) (Paris: Ch.
Delagrave, 1926), p. 20.
32 Education and the Colonial Experience
38. Ibid., p. 92.
39. See "Enseignement primaire," BGIp, partie scolaire, 4e Annee, No.6 (fev.
1925), p. 330; ibid., 7. Anne, No.5 Ganv. 1928), p. 292; ibid., 8e Annee, No.
5 Ganv. 1929), p. 305.
40. Robert Imbert, Mon Ami Kofji (livre de lecture d ['usage des ecoles africaines)
(paris: Ferdinand Nathan, 1934), pp. 14142. '
41. L. Sonalet and A. Peres, Moussa et Gi-gla; histoire de deux petits Noirs: livre
de lecture courante (collrs complet de I'enseignement d /'usage des ecoles de
l'Afrique Occidentale FranfOise) (paris: Armand Colin, 1926). p. 83.
42. See Monguillot,le Gouverneur G6nernt p.i. de l'Indochine, Commandeur de
la Legion d'Honneur, a M Ie Ministre des Colonies, 17 juillet 1928, AOM,
Fonds du Gouvemement General de l'Indochine (rux) 51.173.
43. See Charles Robequain, The Economic Development of French Indochina (Lon-
don: Oxford University Press, 1941); Virginia Thompso!1, French Indochina
(New York: Macmillan, 1937) Virginia M. Thompson and Richard Adloff,
French West A/rica (palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1957).
44. This discussion of in digeneous schools is based on Milton Osborne. The French
Presence in Cochinchina and Cambodia: Rule and Response, 1858-1903
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969); for a discussion of precolonial schools
see Nguyen-Khac-Vien, "Marxism and Confucianism in Vietnam," in Tradi-
tion and Revolution in Vietnam. ed. (Berkeley: Indochina
Resource Center. 1974),"pp. 15-75; Alexander Woodside, Vietnam and the
Chinese Model (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975); David Marr,
Vietnamese Anticolonialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).
For school-closing figures for 1924 see Gouvemement General del'Indochine
Frant;aise, Rapports au Conseil de Gouvernement. Session Ordinaire. deuxfeme
partie: Fonctionllement des divers services indochinois (Hanoi: Imprimerie
d'Extreme-Orient, 1925), Table "Enseignement prive en Indochine," n.p.
45. See Kelly, "Colonial Schools in Vietnam: Policy and Practice."
46. Pham Quynh, Rapport lu en Conseil des Ministres. Ie 18 janvier 1934 (sur
l'organisation de l'enseignement rural en Annam). ADM, NF 2592226.
47. These tenns are taken from Ngu-Binh-Thanh, "Nouvelles de l' Annam: encore
du poison," La Jeune Indochine. 2e Annee, No.9 (5 janv. 1929). pp. 1-2;
'"Revue de la presse; l'universite indochinoise," L 'Ecolier annamite. lere An-
nee, No.1 (8 rnai 1924), p, 3.
I
I
2
COLONIALISM AND SCHOOLING IN
THE PHILIPPINES, 18981970
Douglas Foley
Philippine educational development h.s been generally characterized as
a progressive policy that promoted political democracy and social equality.
This study argues th.t the policy of developing an educational system is so
intimately related to the larger historical pattern of Western economic and
cultural imperialism that mass education is ultimately and essentially a part
of that exploitation. The colonial records suggest how the American coloni-
als, collaborating with the Filipino ruling class, conceived of education as
a "human resource development" plan for a dependent agricultural colony.
Ultimately, these early leaders created a politically dominated, highly cen
tralized public education.l system run by a Western-oriented; relatively
powerless professional group to serve this end. This interpretation oftwen-
tiethcentury Philippine educational development wili first describe the
sociopolitical context of educational policy, that is, the general American
colonial policy and collaboration with the emerging Filipino ruling class.
The second section will describe the major ideological and policy orienta-
tions of Philippine education during the colonial period from 1898 to 1946.
The third section will describe how many of the earlier educational policies
continued after independence, and how new foreign aid programs for public
education have continued to promote economic, political, and cultural
dependency in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
AMERICAN COLONIAL POLICY AND AN EMERGING FILIPINO
ELITE
Under Spanish' rule the 'Philippine colony had developed an extensive
national legal-bureaucratic system and had the beginnings of a commercial
agricultural export economy.l Indeed, nineteenth-century Philippine eeo-
33