CHAPTER III Governmental Structure and Policies Affecting Education HE MODERN PERIOD in education in the British Caribbean THE may be said to have begun about 1940. During the preceding hundred years or so, from the completion of the emancipation of the slaves in 1838, educational facilities had remained extremely limited, and substantial change or improvement was slow. There was no tradition of mass public education as the responsibility of the state, and education began largely as a function of religious bodies. In the latter half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries the responsibility of the state in education gradually came to be recognized, and government education departments were established under the British Crown Colony system. As each territory acquired a substantial degree of home rule, cabinet level Ministers of Education responsible to territorial legislative bodies for educational policy were appointed. Execution of policy remained in the hands of a Director of Education or a Chief Education Officer and his staff in the respective territorial education departments. Since there was no central government for the area as a whole, each territorial government developed, in a sense, its own educational system, so that today it may be said there are as many different systems as there are individual territories. Despite variations, however, basic features and common problems gave a unity to education throughout the area. Everywhere government funds were provided for education in two ways-through the establishment of government schools, and through financial contributions to certain denominational and private schools which have become known as "grantaided" schools. Generally speaking and with exceptions in certain territories, governments have established and operated a higher percentage of elementary than secondary schools. In both categories, however, and particularly in secondary education, the percentage of grant-aided denominational schools remains quite substantial in most of the territories. In Trinidad and British Guiana with their diverse racial and cultural groupings these schools have included Hindu and Moslem institutions, as well as Catholic and various Protestant sectarian schools. In Jamaica there has been for over 50 years a legal prohibition on the addition of any church school to the list of grant-aided elementary schools. Thus, insofar as grant-aided schools were concerned, education was accepted as a partnership between religious bodies and governments. The former supplied many of the school buildings and administered the day to day operation of the schools; and the latter gradually assumed more and more of the responsibility for financing school operation and construction costs (sometimes up to 100 percent), set the general pattern and framework of substantive and administrative policies and regulations, and provided for regular inspection and overall administration. It is for this reason and also because of the fact, particularly at the secondary level, of common examinations to measure achievement, that there is today no essential difference in programs and administration between government and aided schools in the same territory, and that for all practical purposes they may be regarded as parts of the same system. A principal handicap to educational development in the British Caribbean, as has been mentioned with respect to the European affiliated areas generally, has long been the poverty of the region and the paucity of funds, public and private, for substantial educational development. Until 1940 the prevailing practice with respect to the financing of education reflected the British Government's view that social services for the benefit of the Caribbean territories should in the main be paid for out of the financial resources of the area.1 In these circumstances, progress in the early years of the 20th century was slow. Population grew, but in the main the same schools, some nearly a hundred years old, continued to accommodate pupils.2 Development and Welfare Organization In 1940 the British Parliament, acting on the recommendation of the West Indies Royal Commission of 1938, enacted the first United Kingdom Colonial Development and Welfare Act to assist colonial areas financially in their social services and economic development, including education. Although the Act applied to British colonial territories as a whole, special provision was made for financial aid to the British West Indies. This enactment and subsequent similar legislation has had far-reaching effects, not only by reason of an immediate increase in funds available for the indicated purposes, but also because it was accompanied by the establishment of the West Indies Development and Welfare Organization with headquarters at 1 British Information Services. The West Indies: A Nation in the Making, p. 16. 2 For historical and general information on education in the British Caribbean Territories, see UNESCO, "British Caribbean Region" and the individual Territorial summaries which follow in World Survey of Education, II, Primary Education (Paris, 1958), p. 1175 ff. Barbados. The original function of this Organization was to supervise the administration of the Act and allocate Development and Welfare Funds in the area, under a Comptroller for Development and Welfare in the West Indies. Up to March 31, 1957, approximately £2,850,000 had been allocated from Colonial Development and Welfare funds for educational purposes in the individual British Caribbean territories and for areawide educational projects, such as the University College of the West Indies. This represented a little over one-tenth of the allocations for all purposes. Additional allocations made for the 1957-60 period would bring the total for all purposes up to £37,500,000 by the latter date.* Originally intended as an agency for administering the distribution of these Colonial Development and Welfare funds, the West Indies Development and Welfare Organization soon extended its functions to include (a) assistance to the British Caribbean Governments in the preparation of applications to the Government of the United Kingdom for grants; (b) the provision of technical assistance and advice to these Governments; and (c) the provision of machinery for regional consultation and cooperation among the British Caribbean territories in economic and social matters. Included among the various technical specialists attached to the Organization was an Education Adviser to the Comptroller, who from 1940 on, worked on a consultative and advisory basis with the territorial governments on education matters. He also became exofficio chairman of several regionwide groups of territorial and institutional officials concerned with education, including the Conference of Directors of Education and of Education Officers of the British Caribbean Territories, established in 1951. The Development and Welfare Organization, with its emphasis on the regional approach to common problems, helped pave the way toward British West Indies Federation, and in fact in 1955 the Comptroller of the Organization was named Commissioner for the Preparation of the Federal Organization. In the planning for Federation it was assumed that the new Federal Government would become the channel for the administration of Colonial Development and Welfare funds and their distribution to Territories within the Federation, including monies for educational purposes. The Government of the United Kingdom gave assurances that Colonial Development and Welfare funds would continue until the Federation's attainment of independence within the Commonwealth. It was also assumed that the Federal Government would carry on the 3 Luke, Sir Stephen, Comptroller for Development and Welfare in the West Indies, Development and Welfare in the West Indies, 1957 (United Kingdom Colonial Office, 1958), p. 6 and table II. 4 British Information Services, The West Indies: A Nation in the Making, p. iv and 2. |