Addressing the issue of the British Education System still hanging on our necks in Africa . I will start by going back into time, into the colonial era and ask what was the purpose of colonial education and schools ? In brief the purpose of colonial education was to train some clerks, a few technicians to administer the colonial apparatus in the colonized countries. These clerks recorded things so that the colonial officials ( in the case of the British) could take the right decisions and send them to the colonial office in Britain. The other side of the education system was the training of the military which went under the name of the Kings African Rifles (KAR). The headquaters was in Nairobi East Africa, the other branch was in South Africa and the office responsible for the boundaries was in Sierra Leone, Free Town.
In brief colonial education was meant to transform the colonized peoples into British subjects.Some examples as how this was actually done was for example through syllabuses – and how this was used to indoctrinate the people into submitting , people becoming subjects The British had what they called the British Tropical Africa Education System. That was the base of it. The first step was use of the British Language. In order to erase in peoples minds their culture, traditions and ways of life. The Program of learning was in 2 parts. The first part was primary education which was 6 years. You were taught in your mother tongue which was called the ”vernacular”. You where taught this from primary 1 to primary 4. The last part which was primary 5 and primary 6 was called Full Primary. This was taught in English. Preparing you for the Junior Secondary Education which was always boarding school. There you would go for 3 years after which you would go for Senior Secondary Education. This was an ordinary level. After that you would take a Cambridge School Certificate. The teachers, lessons etc all came from England and it was also combined with religion. The leaders of the colonized had to be Anglican and Protestant, legal issues could be handled by a Catholic. In the case of Uganda, you could not be Prime Minister, Minister of Finance or Foreign Affairs if you were not Anglican Protestant. To be considered educated, to pass full primary to go to Junior Secondary School and Senior, you had to pass English. If you failed English, you failed everything. It did not matter whether you got 100% in mathematics, to be educated was to speak English. So you can see for 6 years you were Brainwashed, then you spent an additional 3 years in Junior Secondary School and 3 in Senior Secondary School, 12 years in all. On top of that you are seperated from your tribal ethnic group and kept in a boarding school. After 12 years of this a person is left with practically no respect for his culture. Some do not even speak their own language. For example in Protestant schools the girls were taught that to make native beer was sinful yet they could drink coca cola and British beer which was not sinful. So you will find, almost all protestant educated women of my age do not know how to make beer. Yet in Lugbari culture for example in Lado where I come from it is an industry. A young women can make beer, sell it and get money. Now they are not doing it, then what will they get ? Nothing. So you will find, using English Language as an instrument for Brainwashing and being taught in all Secondary Education by white teachers (predominantly English) with only primary 1 to 4 or may be 6 taught in an African Language what can you expect. Allow this to go on for a generation and what can you expect ? You have been oppressed, insulted, taught to respect the British adore them and if you do not, you don`t pass and therefore you are not educated. We have to clear this, we have to introduce our own languages. There is no African University today in Africa which uses a native language. Everything is either in English, French, Italian, Portugeese or Spanish. So the Brainwashing is still going on today. The first thing we have to do to counter this is to go back to our primitive African Languages whether they are called ”vernacular”, ”ethnic”, it does not matter. Language is the identity of a people. It makes you think. It is an instrument of culture, to carry culture, to preserve culture, to think about your way of life. Subjects like Economics or Law were not taught in the British Education System. You had to go to England, there was nothing in Africa. So when they said they are teaching you did History,Geography, Mathematics and may be Medicine. Another thing in the case of Uganda was that the brightest children in Junior or Senior Secondary were all taken to England so that they finish Secondary Education in England. So what can you expect of such persons, trained by foreigners, educated by foreigners what can you expect of them ? So I do not blame the present so - called educated Africans, because they are not educated they are Brain How the Colonial System destroyed already existing sytems of education, governance and production in the societies they imposed themselves on Colonial mentality still continues : Colonialism had 3 stages the first was what they called influence. Where you see through missionaries explorers they came pretending to be friends. They were the NGO`s of the day. The NGO`s replaced the missionaries and the explorers. So the missionaries where instruments of the Colonial Administration. Another group was the anthropologists. You find they came pretending to live among villagers distorting and twisting their culture in their writings. You then had the administration starting with the lowest ranking the district commissioners, then came the provincial comissioners who was the link between the District and the Protectorate, take Uganda as an example, which was a typical Colonial Protectorate compared to Kenya which was a Colony. In a Colony the whites would just come sit on the land, drive the Africans away and use them as slaves to work the Land. South Africa and Zimbabwe where other examples of this. You don`t move they kill you. Uganda was different, it was a protectorate. Here you were cautious, you had to move like a snake. You only bite when necessary. You started by influence, missionaries bringing Christianity, Education and all this, so that people have a better life. The people feel they are loved and all the havoc is then done through that. Then there was the Military. When a Tribe or Chief was resisting the British Administration a military expedition would be sent. Some of the Chiefs would be executed publicly like in Acholi Land where some Chiefs were hanged in Public in 1910-11. Some where deported commonly to the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean. Now the Chiefs had to work under the district commissioner. This was called indirect rule. Ruling people through their own Chiefs which is exactly what happens today when they rule Africans through their Presidents. There is no difference. Back then they were Chiefs today they are called Presidents. So, who made the rules ? For British Colonies they were made in England, for the French in Paris and for the Portugeese in Lissabon etc. Egypt (in 1517), Sudan (in 1821) and in Lado ( where todays West Nile still is situated lies ) (1871) were occupied initially by the Ottoman empire and therefore the method here in Lado was different at the time. So the British used the Church missionary society to do all their ground work whereas the French used the Catholic Church as did the Portugeese. There is no difference as to whether it was Catholic or Protestant. For example in Uganda there was fight between Britain and France over the Kingdom of Uganda. The Protestants fought for Britain and the Catholics for France. In the Local language it became baenglesa and bafrance (the English and the French) but they were not English or French. Except they were Catholics and Protestants. It was even on the application form when joining the military that you must show your religion. You were given jobs according to your religion. There was no Central Bank, all banks were controlled by the British. In administration from Executive position up to permanent Secretary it was the British, or Canadians, or Australians, or New Zealanders and sometimes South Africans, some of the Boers were brought to work there in Uganda as a typical example. No black man was above even an Asian. The clerks, the big clerks were Asians from Indian, Pakistan – at this time Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan. The Asians were above the blacks. They were between the whites who were top and Africans who were on the bottom. So this was the Colonial structure until 1960 in the case of Uganda which was a Protectorate. In the Army no African was above the rank of Sergent Major. Anybody black was down. When the Ladoan then form the actual West Nile today and became Lieutenant in the Kings African Rifle - 4th Regiment - at the age of 18 , He was the first (in 1960). Then Amin – Idi Amin from Lado - became a lieutenant in 1961 with a fellow Shaban Oplot from Teso under him . The military was used always to subdue the people, the Chiefs who refused people who didn`t want to obey the British. It was worse than what they are pretendig to say about Zimbabwe today. There was no Democracy, no Elections, no Political parties. This is to remember of a situation in Western Uganda around 1958 – 1961, the Colonial Secretary of Uganda Peagram – this was in1961 - ordered the drinking water of the Catholics to be poisoned so that on election day the Catholics would be sick and would not vote. Fortunately somebody saw this and alerted the commender military Officer who was then Captain commanding in the Western Area( by then was the ( the man from West Nile who was the Captain ) . The water was tested there was found enough poison not only to make people sick but to kill. The Catholic population of Ankole was high, so was managed to prevent the plan. This was one of the reasons why the first Army Leader commander from: - ( 1960 - 1962 ) was imprisoned for 7 years in 1962. Though He didn`t finish the term. He was forced to be realeased later. Another example of this was in Bunyoro. An election took place for Prime Minister, what they call Katikiro but a Catholic man won. The British said no, we are not going to appoint a Catholic to be Prime minster. Elections are irrelevant. And today we find the British Prime Ministers shouting about Justice and Elections. And in 1961 Democracy did not exist. How can it exist today in Uganda and elsewhere where European Interests is Iceberg ? The same thing happened in a district called Toro. Bunyoro is a Kingdom, Toro is a Kingdom, Ankole is a Kingdom and Buganda is a Kingdom. These where all kingdoms which were messed about and made one through of the Agreement 26th December 1890, then alot of other agreements where done ending with the agreement of 10th March, 1900 – the Uganda Kingdom Agreement. For Ankole it was 1891, for Toro it was 1893. But Bunyoro refused. King Kabarega of the Bunyoro was therefore deported to the Seychelles Islands until 1923 and was brought back and died the same year. Whether natural or poisoned nobody spoke of it. They then forced his son to sign to become part of Uganda 10 years later (1933). All these situations of Education have led in building unreputable country like Uganda today . To continue -------- meanwhile read on to pass your comments on please ! Pario - Anguyo
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