Assignment: 2

Presentation write up:

Discuss the extent to which the recommendation of the Judges commission were met in
the colonial era. (100)

Between 1908 and 1974, the colonial Government appointed commissions to investigate
some problems in education and submit their reports presumably to enable it to design
policies which could help in designing an adequate educational policy for national
development. But a study of what came out the reports of these commissions lead to a
different conclusion and that is the Government used these reports to enhance the legislative
and political power to control, the development of Africans and their access to education.

Ten years after the Kerr Commission, in 1962 at the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia
and Nyasaland, another commission, the Judges Commission, was set up with the following
brief, to consider the present position of education in particular to examine and reassess the
relationship of education between State and Aided schools, the allocation of resources of
primary and post primary education, the distribution of resources to several varieties of
primary and post primary education and the distribution of responsibilities and the work of
government and industrial bodies. (Government of Rhodesia, 1962)

At the time, primary African Education had grown seven-fold since 1952. For example, at the
time some missionaries like Sir Garfield Todd had joined politics and wished to continue
doing for the Africans what they had been doing at their missions. During the Federation,
farming as an industry was on the increase. Thus, in Southern Rhodesia, there were now
schools on farms and in rural areas in addition to mission schools.

Because of the later, the Judges Commission recognized, the massive numbers of African
children who were enrolled in schools and at that time they deliberately introduced the
bottleneck policy of the government and recommended that provision of primary education
for all up to seven years, but did not require it to be compulsory. The Commission also
recommended some form of decentralization and communication with local authorities
through the establishment of ‘Local Advisory Committees’. With this having been said, the
local authorities which were largely composed of Missionaries, they failed to pay the 10% of
teachers’ salaries as per the recommendation (Hungwe k.1994). This contributed to a large
gap of education inequity between the whites and the black children, because the
Missionaries could not fund the school meaning that even the educational resources were not
enough. Only the white schools and a few black schools in cities were run and funded by the
government, but there was a gap in resource allocation and distribution between the two
racial schools.

Education for Whites was largely free and compulsory up to the age of fifteen and was state
responsibility, whereas African education was in the hands of various organizations, the
majority of whom were missionaries (Maravanyika O. 1990). I strongly believe that if
primary education for the whites was compulsory it meant they strongly understood the
importance of early childhood education and as well as engaging children in school at an
early age. Together with the Government’s funding, trained teachers and adequate
educational resources the Early Childhood Education was supported and well implemented
for the white community.

On the other hand, if primary schools were not compulsory for Africans it leads us to the
conclusion that during this time Pre-Primary was not as important for African children as it
was for white people. This could be so because there were no educational resources since
African schools were in the hands on various organisations and well-wishers who did not
have adequate finances to sponsor early childhood education. Also, most African children
were introduced to farming as early as pre-school age to help their families as schools were
far and also required some payment, thus the families end up keeping the children at home
until they have passed childhood.

The development of this complex educational policy guaranteed white privilege and
segregated the African Child. In the white schools only a very small percentage of the black
children were allowed. I can also say that with these few black learners accepted in the white
school, they were not children from ordinary African parents but of those blacks who were
working closely with the whites leaving the majority of African children in poorly funded
schools which no attention was given by the government.

The few African school in the cities were funded by the government, but only a few children
attended as most of the African children were settled on farms and villages. If the two racial
schools were funded in the same way, then we can say the few blacks in town were able to
experience pre-primary education, but if not the children in cities did not partake early
childhood education. The playgrounds in parks were for white children as the black people
were not allowed in the parks.

Even if there was compulsory primary schools for African children not much attention was
paid to Early childhood development. This is so because most of African children were
concentrated in Missionary schools were their education was mainly focused on religious
education, reading and writing. Matters of early childhood development was not a priority,
and parents were not also engaged in their children’s learning. Though the Judges
Commission which had previously recommended strongly the introduction of practical and
pre-vocational skills in primary school I believe it was not implemented in lower Primary
levels.

Due to the few schools allocated on farms, some communities would be very far from an
educational centre, hence they were not sending their children to school at an early age for
example five years. At this age the children were too young to walk long distances to go for
school. They would send a child for school at the age of ten years to commence grade one
because they assumed at that age the child is able to walk the long distance to school. So this
means that the whole pre-school age was spent at home carrying out adult chores and treated
as mini adults.

In addition the teaching of spoken English was consistent with the recommendations of the
Native Education Commission of 1952 (Kerr Commission). The Commission concluded that
the African child was going to be drawn more and more "into the orbit of the European"
(Rep. Native Educ., Comm, 1952). It was recommended that "speech training be emphasised
in all secondary and teacher-training courses" and that children be taught through the medium
of the mother tongue in the first years of schooling, and then in English in the higher grades.
The importance of spoken English was endorsed by the Education Commission of 1962
(Judges Commission). At that time, education officials were contemplating a review of
language policy in African education. The changes under consideration favoured a more
aggressive English instruction policy than that recommended by the Kerr Commission ten
years earlier. This line of thinking was supported by the findings of the Hope Fountain
mission experiment. The findings of the mission experiment suggested that African children
should be taught in English from the first year of school without using specially trained
teachers (Rep. Sec. African Educ., 1962).

It was also claimed that African children taught in English from the first year of school made
more rapid progress in school than those initially taught using the medium of an African
language. The authorities at Hope Fountain recommended that the use of English from the
first year of schooling might make teaching more efficient so that primary school education
could be shortened by one year. The research design did not inspire much confidence and the
findings were intended to be preliminary. However, reports by the Secretary for African
Education quoted the Hope Fountain mission findings widely (Rep. Sec. African Educ,
1962). The findings were also noted in the influential Judges Report (Rep. Sec. African
Educ.,1962).

The Judges commissioners were also influenced by testimony from local educational
authorities. One line of reasoning presented by Europeans giving evidence to the commission
was that many Africans do not continue their formal education after the primary stage. For
this reason as much time as possible in school should be spent in using English. A superficial
knowledge of English means a superficial knowledge of English culture. Language was
viewed as a vehicle of communication and also as a tool of cultural influence. The Judges
Commission endorsed the findings of the Hope Fountain study and concluded that the costs
of losing some of the advantages of early vernacular instruction would be more than
compensated by fostering a more rapid acquaintanceship with English idiom at an
impressionable age (Rep. Educ. Comm., 1962).
Africans were keen to learn English and the ability to speak English was a highly valued
status symbol. Africans, on the other hand, believed that English language instruction was
important because of the international status of English. In this regard, high numbers of
enrolment of African children in school were witnessed. Which later made the whites to
introduce the bottleneck system so that only a few African children will proceed to secondary
school.

But educating Africans created a dilemma as Wilson, 1923 put it. According to the reasoning
on the Judges commission, they only wanted to create a skilled labour for themselves, so by
educating Africans they feared competition in the economy.

However, the educational system remained racially differentiated and unequal over the
colonial period. In general, educational policy initiatives were designed to sustain the
interests of a racial elite. The educational policy formulation was, therefore, constrained by
narrow racial considerations. The result was an underdevelopment of both the physical
habitat and the intellectual and skill resources of the African population

In conclusion, the judge’s commission surfaced emphasising compulsory education for

whites and non compulsory for Africans. Only white schools and few black African schools
were funded by the government. The commission continued to suppress the black community
by not aiding the African schools which were in the rural areas so that they could also
practice early childhood education and encourage early education. The unfairly distribution
of educational resources and racial discrimination led to the exclusion of early childhood
education in the African community though the African community had its way of educating
its children through the Ubuntu.
Rusere, K. (1993) A case study of Roman Catholic activities at St Joseph's Mission, unpublished BEd
dissertation, University of Zimbabwe.