The PANAFRICAN Review
It was to make the colonised a better subject , to appreciate the “ civilising ” mission of the colonial project , and facilitate the propagation of colonial rule .
From a practical standpoint , as a brutal and violent system of rule forcefully foisted on the colonised , colonial rule required a slavish subject , one who worked for the colonial administration as a clerical staff or supplied raw materials as a dedicated extension worker or a hardworking peasant .
Thus , colonial education as one of the tools for perpetuating colonial occupation was not oriented towards producing thoughtful professionals and independent-minded persons ; rather it was to supply a small army of support staff and to educate a tiny coterie of elites who were agents of colonial rule . The education they received was not about liberating their intellectual faculties to ask questions , but to equip them with basic technical skills to take instructions from colonial masters and imbibe a deep-seated admiration for the white saviour .
Graduates of vocational schools and high schools , even those coming out of colleges and universities , were oriented more as loyal servants than questioning citizens , to take orders than think for themselves and advance the “ civilising ” mission than assert self-determination . The learner had to be passive . The teacher wore an intimidating aura and authoritarian tenor as not to be challenged . This was part of the broader design of colonial authority and its institutional fabric : to be bluntly despotic and patently unaccountable .
What is more , the curriculum had to sync with the “ civilising ” mission . It was F . W . Hegel , arguably the most important European thinker of the early modern period before Africa was formally conquered and colonised , reasoned that Africa had no history and therefore was not a historical part of the world .
Therefore , the colonial education curriculum had to reflect this “ wisdom ”, of an Africa without a history , whose wellbeing and progress were only possible by fiat of colonial conquest . Through the colonial curriculum , the projection of European military invincibility
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