Education in British East Africa

Extract

The object of this article is to present a picture of educational work among the African population, particularly that undertaken by the Church in British East Africa, with special reference to Tanganyika Territory, since the school organisation and the various problems connected with it in Tanganyika can be taken as typical of educational work in the neighbouring countries of Uganda and Kenya.

These three territories, which are as large as Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and the British Isles put together, meet about the shores of Lake Victoria. The total population is 17,600,000, of whom 7,500,000 are in Tanganyika and roughly 5,000,000 in each of the other two territories. The European population is very small in proportion, and is made up mostly of Government officers, save in Kenya where there is a white settlement of nearly 20,000. There are 11,000 Goans and an Indian community of nearly 170,000, small in numbers but economically very influential, since most of the trading, in Tanganyika in particular, is in Indian hands. The natural African unit is a tribal one, each with its own taboos, customs, laws, languages and chiefs; and where the administrative boundaries cut across tribal areas or group them into districts or reserves, the tribal organisation, with the chiefs’ barazas, is respected as far as possible.

The three territories which constitute British East Africa and the island of Zanzibar come within different political categories. Uganda and Zanzibar are Protectorates, Kenya is mainly a Colony with a narrow coastal strip formerly belonging to the Sultan of Zanzibar and now a protectorate area, and Tanganyika is a British Mandate. The territorial boundaries are entirely the result of the European occupation of East and Central Africa at the end of the last century.