tution of the Netherlands Antilles of 1955, promulgated pursuant to the necessity for adapting the internal Antillean constitutional system to the new partnership system of the Kingdom of the Netherlands of 1954.

In the case of the French Caribbean areas, political self-expression has taken a different, and in a sense an opposite, direction from that in the British and Dutch areas. On March 19, 1946, the colonial status of those areas-Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana-was terminated and they became overseas Departments of France. In this framework they stand on the same footing and have the same status as the administrative units of this name in continental France. This means that they are integral parts of France and are governed in the same way as French continental Departments under the unitary and centralized governmental and administrative system of France. The executive authority in each of the three French Caribbean Departments is exercised by a Prefect appointed, as for all French Departments, by the French Minister of the Interior.

The inhabitants of the Caribbean Departments have all the civil and political rights of French citizens. They are represented in the French national legislature and have their own Department Councils, or local legislative bodies, with representatives in both chosen by universal suffrage. The satisfaction of the French Caribbean Departments with this governmental and administrative status was attested to by the overwhelming majority vote they gave to the new French Constitution in September 1958, the provisions of which affirmed this status.

Whatever form or direction the movement for greater political self-expression has taken in the European affiliated Caribbean territories, the movement may be regarded as symbolizing their development and aspirations, not only in political but in economic and social matters as well. It is also normal that the beginnings of the movement toward political, economic, and social maturity should be accompanied by a great interest in and a demand for augmented educational facilities to meet the need and desire for national and individual development and self-government. This aspiration has been summed up in the statement that "education for nationhood * * has become the watchword of the peoples of those countries of the Caribbean."2

*

Notwithstanding the differences in educational systems and patterns in the European Caribbean stemming from the different national and cultural patterns represented by the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France, there are, as already indicated, basic

2 Caribbean Commission. Increasing Purpose (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 1957), p. 65.

similarities in their educational problems and needs. These similarities have been recognized by the representatives of the respective territories themselves. Among the channels for giving area wide recognition to such problems and needs in the period since World War II have been the meetings on education sponsored by the regional organization known as the Caribbean Commission. A survey of its deliberations thus affords an overview of the area's educational needs as seen by its own representatives. A summary of some of the Commission's educational activities, which have focused attention on these problems and have included certain undertakings designed to assist in meeting some of the area's common needs follows.

CHAPTER II

The Caribbean Commission

HE CARIBBEAN COMMISSION was organized in 1946 as an intergovernmental consultative and advisory body by the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands-the so-called metropolitan member powers having at that time the primary responsibility for the social and economic wellbeing of the respective Caribbean territories associated with them. It was an outgrowth of the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission established in 1942 during World War II by the United States and the United Kingdom to study and advise those two governments on problems of their Caribbean territories. The purpose of the expanded Caribbean Commission was to foster in the same manner the economic and social well-being and development of the Caribbean territories affiliated with all the metropolitan powers of the area. Thus, in addition to the European connected areas with which we are concerned in this study, the United States affiliated areas of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands came within the purview of the Caribbean Commission.

In 1959 the Caribbean Commission was in process of being transformed from an organ of the four metropolitan governments into a body directly representative of the Caribbean areas themselves. The projected transformation reflected the changed political and constitutional realities in the European and United States affiliated Caribbean areas, and was designed to facilitate the continuation of social, economic, and cultural cooperation in the region. The name "Caribbean Organization" was proposed for the new body, with its headquarters to be located in Puerto Rico. The fall of 1960 was the target date for the formal launching of the Organization.

With its organization in 1946, the Caribbean Commission established a Central Secretariat at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, to carry out its program and serve as a center of information and material on the Caribbean in various subject fields, including education. Also set up as part of the Caribbean Commission "system" were two auxiliary bodies-the Caribbean Research Council and the West Indian Conference. The Caribbean Research Council was established as the Commission's research arm to undertake studies as needed, in the various fields within the scope of the Commis

sion's activities. It was organized to operate through several standing committees of subject experts, one of which was its Committee on Sociology and Education. The other principal auxiliary body of the Commission-the West Indian Conference-was intended to provide a periodic and regular means of consultation among the representatives of the territories themselves. It also served to express the consensus of their views and recommendations to the metropolitan governments, their own Governments, and the Commission on matters of common interest, including education. The West Indian Conference has provided much of the stimulus for making the area aware of its education needs and possible means of meeting them.

Regional Consultation on Education

As early as 1942, education was among the subjects on which recommendations were made by the Commission's predecessor, the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, and these recommendations formed the basis of an exchange of notes between the United States and the United Kingdom on Caribbean problems. Point 6 of this exchange of notes, formulated at almost the birth stage of the Commission, dealt with educational problems in the area that have continued to draw attention in Commission-sponsored meetings and activities ever since. It stated that "while an adequate literary and cultural standard must be maintained, a greater vocational bias should be introduced into the educational system."1

Education also received some attention at early sessions of the West Indian Conference, beginning in 1944. The First Session of the Conference, meeting in that year, before the Commission's transformation into a four-nation body in 1946, included on its agenda the subject of public works planning for the improvement of physical facilities in various services, including education. In this way the territorial representatives took note of the area's inadequate and overcrowded educational facilities and the great need for additional space and improvements in school buildings. The Conference's first session also initiated the attention given at succeeding sessions to vocational education, by recommending that governments provide "vocational and technical training to increase the supply of skilled workers required for future development of industry."2

The Second Session of the West Indian Conference meeting early in 1946 shortly after the addition of the Netherlands and France

1 Quoted in Frances McReynolds Smith, "The Caribbean Commission: Prototype of Regional Cooperation," in The Caribbean: British, Dutch, French, United States, A. Curtis Wilgus, ed. (Gainesville, Fla., 1958, University of Florida Press), p. 281.

2 Caribbean Commission. Development of Vocational Education in the Caribbean (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 1953), p. 66.

to the Caribbean Commission, while not dealing with education as a specific agenda item, noted that "education is an essential prerequisite to progress within the area. No matter what aspect of the area is being considered, the basic problem is how to bring greater knowledge to bear on it." The Conference emphasized that "the fundamental need is for better primary and secondary education, together with a development of adult education, designed to strengthen the qualities of good citizenship and thereby to increase standards of production and *** of living."

The interest of West Indian representatives in vocational and "practical" education, including home economics, continued to be manifested by their attention to these subjects at succeeding sessions of the West Indian Conference, as well as at several specialized conferences sponsored by the Caribbean Commission, during the period 1948-52. Vocational and industrial training in its relation to accelerating the industrial development and the economic productivity of the area was included on the agenda of the Third Session of the West Indian Conference in 1948, and General Rural and Agricultural Education was an agenda subject at the Fourth Session held in 1950. In view of the area interest in home economics education, a specialized conference sponsored jointly by the Caribbean Commission and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, on Home Economics and Education in Nutrition, was held at Trinidad in 1952. A major result of this conference was the assignment of a home economist to the Commission by the FAO from 1953 to 1957. This specialist organized and conducted training courses, seminars, and workshops in home economics and home economics education in the various areas served by the Commission, and through wide travel in the Caribbean stimulated emphasis on home economics education both for adults and for children in regular school programs of instruction.

The desire of the West Indian representatives to consider vocational educational problems of the area on a broader and more intensive basis was evidenced by a closing recommendation of the 1950 session of the West Indian Conference that one of the major agenda items of the Fifth Session, to be held in 1952, should be a study of "Vocational Education in the Caribbean Area" in its various aspects, and that documentation for the conference should be prepared in advance in the form of papers on each aspect of vocational education. The result was that the Fifth Session of the West Indian Conference gave detailed consideration to different aspects of vocational education. A series of useful papers was prepared as documentation for the Conference. Among the agenda

3 Caribbean Commission. Education in the Caribbean (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, 1956), Foreword, p. iii.