of them Americans) and Roman Catholic missionaries had entered the territory and established missions. Under the Berlin Act of 1885 all Christian missions were accorded special protection in the Congo Free State. In 1906, however, when the Free State took what may be regarded as its first major step in developing a school system for the Congolese,' it entrusted the task largely to the Roman Catholic orders. That same year the Congo Free State, although establishing four official schools to train Africans for government employment, concluded a Concordat with the Vatican under which all the Roman Catholic missions in the Congo agreed to open schools in return for perpetual grants of land and for subsidies to aid their scientific, religious, and educational activities. This action "established the Catholic missions in a position of almost exclusive influence." 2 An African Education Commission (the first of two so-called Phelps-Stokes Missions) sent to the Congo and other African areas in 1920 to study the educational situation there, stressed the Congo Government's encouragement of mission societies in the colony and its impartial policies regarding them, but commented: "The Catholic missionaries, many of whom are of Belgian origin, are naturally in close touch with their government and have received many subsidies." 3 During the next few years the Government took its first major step into the educational field, drawing up a general plan and deciding to grant subsidies to independent schools conforming to certain conditions. When it did so, the Government in effect entered into a cooperative arrangement with the Belgian Roman Catholic missions. The regulations provided that only "national" missions (those headquartered in Belgium and having a predominantly Belgian administrative body) could qualify. Since the Protestant missions with few exceptions were unable to gain recognition as "national" missions they could not qualify for educational grants until new regulations were issued 20 years later. The Government was in effect using the Roman Catholic missions as its agents in the educational field. All of its financial support for "free" education went to them. In addition it continued to assign responsibility for operating government-maintained schools to the Belgian Roman Catholic orders, a practice followed also by the private business companies. 1 Although this was the first big step in developing a school system, the action was not the first official authorization for educational activities. In 1890 the Congo Free State had issued a decree providing for setting up "school colonies" to take in abandoned or neglected children, and in 1892 a decree authorizing the missions to receive such children into their schools. p. 1269. Lord Hailey. An African Survey. London: Oxford University Press, 1945. Thomas Jesse Jones, Chairman. Education in Africa: A Study of West, South, and Equatorial Africa by the African Education Commission Under the Auspices of the PhelpsStokes Fund and Foreign Mission Societies of North America and Europe. New York: Phelps-Stokes Fund, 1922. p. 258. Education for Congolese Entirely separate and different from the system of schools for Belgian children in the Congo, a considerable network of schools for Congolese was gradually built up. Almost the entire effort, however, went into elementary and post primary vocational education, and the great majority of pupils received only the most rudimentary instruction. The Early Years During the early years the Christian missions, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, went about the tremendous task in a distinctive way. Unlike missions in other parts of Africa that concentrated their efforts on the coastal areas and on academic education, those in the Congo moved deeply into the country and, obviously to spread their influence as widely and rapidly as possible among the masses of the people, established a large number of small schools giving only the simplest instruction. They not only set up a central school or schools at each mission station, but set up numerous "bush" or "outpost" schools under African teachers in the area surrounding the station. By 1920, when the Phelps-Stokes mission visited the Congo, these outpost schools were giving only the most rudimentary instruction, for their African teachers generally had very little education themselves.* The central schools were giving a little more instruction, and the few official schools, run at administrative centers by members of Roman Catholic orders, offered trades training and some elementary general instruction. Apparently all teaching was in African languages, and a tendency was developing to concentrate on four widely spoken tongues-Kikongo, Lingala, Swahili, and Tshiluba. Viewing the entire picture at the time (1920), the Phelps-Stokes Describing the African teachers of one mission, the 1922 Phelps-Stokes Fund report of the 1920 African Education Commission said: "Their knowledge of reading is not more than that of a second- or third-grade child. Their arithmetic consists of addition and subtraction. It is reported that a very small number of them are somewhat more advanced." Ibid., p. 271. The central schools at the mission stations differed considerably in size and programs: Some offered only the usual schoolroom instruction, others provided in addition trades training and real agricultural instruction. It is perhaps fair to say, however, that the central schools offered not more than 4 years of elementary instruction covering religion, reading, and writing an African language, arithmetic, perhaps a little French, and some simple agricultural and industrial training. According to the report mentioned in footnote 4 only two schools were definitely planned to give more advanced training to pupils mission regarded the educational facilities in relation to the needs of the country as "almost negligible." The mission discovered that: Of the 2,200,000 children of school age, there are less than 200,000 in all types of schools. The primitive and crude character of a very large proportion of these schools is beneath any school test ever conceived by an American or European student of education." In 1928 another observer reported: mission schools are primarily devoted to religious instruction and the government schools to filling immediate administrative needs the whole cultural and educational level of the native population appears to be as low here as anywhere on the continent.' The 1922 Proposals During the 1920's the Government developed a new approach for African education. A commission charged in 1922 with drawing up a plan stressed that the following approach should be taken: • Adapt programs and methods to the indigenous environment. • Give priority to education rather than mere instruction and learning. • Teach in the African languages (in French as an exception only). • Give attention to the education of girls. • Develop teacher-training schools for African teachers. Within the next few years, evidently on the basis of the 1922 commission's recommendations, the Government laid down a new uniform organizational pattern for all subsidized schools and another one for all official schools, and issued programs of study applying to both. These are set forth in two documents issued in 1929.8 The system of subsidized schools was to have three levels of education: lower primary-2 years; upper primary-3 years; and postprimary vocational (in special schools)-4 years at the most. The official system, on the other hand, was to have two levels: primary—6 years; and vocational 4 years at the most. • Thomas Jesse Jones, chairman, op. cit., p. 258. "The observer was R. L. Buell, quoted by J. S. Harris in his article, "Education in the Belgian Congo." The Journal of Negro Education, XV :3:422. Summer 1946. • The subsidized school programs and the official school programs appear in the following two publications, respectively: (1) SUBSIDIZED Congo Belge. Organisation de l'Enseignement libre au Congo Belge et au Ruanda-Urundi, avec le concours des Sociétés de Missions nationales. Dison-Verviers: Imprimerie Disonaise (Maison S. Winandy), 1929. (2) OFFICIAL-Congo Belge, Inspection Générale de l'Enseignement. Instructions pour les Inspecteurs Provinciaux relatives aux programmes à suivre dans les différentes écoles et à leur interprétation. Boma: Imprimerie du Congo Belge [1929?] p. 29–36. • Discussion based on the documents named in footnote 8. 206-185 0-66—2 The 1929 document on free education so clearly stated the Government's objectives in providing education for the Congolese and its views as to the kind of education they should receive that certain sections demand special attention: The primary schools will gradually develop the following traits among the indigenous people: moral qualities, an aptitude for work, and a habit of continuous effort. To achieve this objective, the teaching will consist in part of religious and moral education and in part of an initiation into manual work, which will round off a very simple academic program and some basic ideas of hygiene. Instruction will be given in one of the four major Congolese languages: Kikongo, Lingala, Swahili, and Tshiluba. In all lower primary schools, rural or urban, academic instruction will be reduced to a minimum and work will be the pivot of all activity. In rural schools at this level (since the work of rural people is agriculture), all teaching will be devoted to imparting a taste for agriculture and to improving agricultural methods. The teacher's mission is to train children for regular work in agriculture and local crafts. To create the habit of work, at least 1 hour a day will be given to manual work, chiefly agriculture. To read, write, and calculate in their own language is enough for children in rural areas. A somewhat advanced literary education would be of little use to them. In population centers, on the other hand, the lower primary schools might give a greater place to academic education in order to prepare pupils for more advanced studies. The direction of teaching, however, will remain the same: training for work and sustained effort. The upper primary schools will enroll students selected from graduates of urban lower primary schools and from the best pupils leaving rural lower primary schools. To be directed by missionaries, upper primary schools will be located in centers where pupils will be in contact with Europeans and will be likely to emulate them. The schools' major purpose will be to prepare candidates for the "special" (vocational) schools, and they will further develop academic study and for the first time will require French. Since not all upper primary pupils, however, will go on to the "special" schools, training will be necessary to prepare useful men for the indigenous milieu. For this reason and because the habit of regular activity will be important for all pupils, practical exercises in upper primary schools will have the same importance as in rural schools. The Government-issued program for the subsidized lower primary schools consisted of the following subjects: arithmetic, drawing, general talks, hygiene, leçons d'intuition, reading and writing, religion, and singing. The leçons d'intuition apparently were designed to teach the children how to describe, analyze, and compare objects. "General talks" would give the teacher an opportunity to inculcate politeness and respect for people and property and provide a general knowledge of the local area. The program for the subsidized upper primary schools consisted of the same subjects as those at the lower primary level plus agriculture, For the official primary schools located in centers of population, the program reads much like that for the subsidized schools but with important differences: It required French throughout the 6 years and a more advanced arithmetic, and omitted agriculture entirely. The vocational schools were clearly intended to train artisans and agriculturists, clerks and other subordinate staff for the administration and for private enterprises, and primary school teachers. At the final or third level, the subsidized system would have the following three types of "special" schools with courses of the length indicated: Types of schools Clerical training Teacher training Number of years in course 3 3 Trades or vocational training (écoles professionelles), with the following courses: Agriculture Agriculture-domestic science for girls Carpentry -- General mechanics_. Training for blacksmiths, plumbers, tinsmiths, and zinc workers.. 43424 The official system was to have trades schools offering the same program as the vocational schools of the subsidized system and also 2-year schools for training clerks. In some of the schools at the final or third level (apparently all official schools and the subsidized schools for clerks) French finally became the language of instruction. Here again, as at the primary level, the programs included only useful subjects related to the work to be done in the particular milieu. The teacher-training programs were to be adapted to the locale in which the trainee would teach. If they were to teach in rural schools they would specialize in agriculture; if in urban schools, in nonagricultural trades. Also the latter were to learn more French, and their arithmetic was to include some basic aspects of commercial arithmetic and practical geometry. Since trainees in the schools for clerks would eventually have to work in contact with Europeans, it would be necessary to Europeanize these trainees to a certain extent. These schools were to give major emphasis to the national language and arithmetic and impart some idea of geography, history, natural phenomena, and natural science. Revised Regulations In 1938 the Government issued revised regulations. These introduced the distinction between lower primary education as education for the masses and upper primary education as education for selected |