Possible Factors that Delayed Early Establishment of Secondary Schools in Nigeria

INTRODUCTION

The activities of the Christian Missionaries in the Lagos araa of what was later named Nigeria began in 1842. This same period marked the beginning of Western-type education in the area. The education was necessitated by the need for more personnel to spread gospel to the increasing audience. The early missionary education was limited to the elementary school level. It was not until 1859 when the Church Missionary Society, made the first bold move to establish the CMS Grammar School, Lagos. This unit examines the development of secondary education in Nigeria from 1859 to 1929.

 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

•  state some of he factors that caused the late establishment of secondary schools in Nigeria; 
• identify some of the early secondary schools and their owners; 
•  discuss some of the problems of the early secondary schools in Nigeria; d. examine some of the contributions of the colonial government to secondary education in Nigeria; 
• discuss the contributions of some African (Nigerians) to secondary education in Nigeria. 

 Possible Factors that Delayed Early Establishment of Secondary Schools in Nigeria

It is necessary to note that the delay in the establishment of secondary education in Nigeria, especially by the colonial government was deliberate. The following are some of the possible reasons: (see Amaele, 2003 p.47-8)

Objective of Missionary/Colonial Education in Nigeria

The main objective of the missionaries in the coast of Nigeria was to evangelise the people. The whole aim of education was to achieve that objective. Since primary education could provide them with the low manpower as interpreters, teachers, messengers, clerks, etc to facilitate the spread of the gospel, there was no need rushing for secondary education.

Conservatism

Secondary education could make the people develop critical thinking, which may not be helpful for the conservation policy of the colonial government. So it has to be discouraged.

 Finance

Another possible reasons could be finance. Secondary education requires higher manpower and huge financial spending which the missions could not conveniently afford. On the part of the colonial government, interest was more on political and economic control, with little interest in spending on education.

Lugard summarized the above in his speech in 1921, when he said; The chief function of government primary and secondary schools among the primitive communities is to train the more promising boys from the village schools as teachers for those schools, as clerks for the local native
schools, and as interpreters.

 The Beginning of Secondary Education in Nigeria

The first secondary school that was successfully established in Nigeria was the CMS Grammar School, Lagos in 1859. The school was modeled along the pattern of English Grammar School. It provided manpower for the colonial administration and European companies. The school curriculum laid emphasis on grammar and Latin. Little was done in the area of science. At this period there were three major types of secondary institutions that emerged. According to Adesina (1977:4) they were: “the grammar or classical education schools, the teacher-training institutions and the vocational and agricultural schools.” Among the grammar schools, the best known was the one started in 1859 by the CMS which was also Nigeria’s first secondary grammar school in Lagos. Due to the competitiveness in admission, into the school, by 1865, only 25 students had passed through the school. The CMS grammar school, with a curriculum modeled along the lines of English Grammar School, remained the major source for the recruitment of clerks for the colonial administration and other European trading companies.

The first attempt at teacher training in Nigeria was the CMS training institution at Abeokuta which was founded in 1853 under the leadership of Richard Charnley Paley of Peterhouse. The CMS attached importance to the training and selection of its missionaries at home. (Britain) and wished to apply the same principles to the selection and training of African evangelists and teachers. That was why, according to Taiwo (1980:9) said:

The Rev. Henry Venne (Jr.) Honorary Secretary of the CMS arranged for an African lad, Thomas Babington Macaulay, to be brought from Fourah Bay College to Islington and Kings’ College, London, and trained with a view to working at a proposed training institution at Abeokuta.

After the death of Richard Charnley Paley of Peterhouse, and completion of his training, Mr. T. B. Macauley succeeded R. C. Paley. Mr. Macaulay’s contribution was “too academic and unsuitable” as it was described by Rev. Henry Townsend, and he was replaced by a Basle Seminary-trained school master, Mr. W. Kirkham to man the institution in 1856, but died a year later. Mr. W. Kirkham was succeeded by Rev. Gottlieb Frederick Ehler, a Basle Seminary man who has been a missionary at Abeokuta since 1855, took over the institution in 1857 and remained in charge of the institution until his death in 1865. It was through the success of Rev. G. F. Buhler that all three of the clergymen the training institution produced by the year 1890 were pupils of his.

In 1856 an industrial institution was established at Abeokuta which taught brick-making, carpentry, dyeing and printing. It also served as a depot for receiving, preparing and sending cotton to England according to Taiwo (1980). In his effort to regenerate Africa by calling forth her resources, Venn had the idea of cotton production in Abeokuta.

 According to Taiwo (1980:9): Venn contracted some Manchester textile merchants and organized a market for Abeokuta cotton. Henry Robin, an emigrant, was sent to Manchester to learn the preparation of cotton for marketing. He and Samuel Crowther (Jr.) were appointed managers of the institution, which organized the sale of cotton directly by farmers to the merchants in Manchester.

The Roman Catholic, on the other hand, in 1876, started agricultural school at Topo. Here, rudiments of agricultural production were taught to students and families that settled on plantations. The products were put on sale and the proceeds were ploughed to offset the running cost of the institution. This Topo school failed because of Roman Catholic policy of admitting only her denominational converts. To support this assertion, Adesina (1977:4) aptly puts it:The Topo experiment however failed partly because of its exclusivist policy of admitting only Roman Catholics and those willing to be converted, partly because it actually became more of a conversion centre than agricultural school, and partly because its programmes, agricultural or otherwise, appealed to very few natives.

As a result of the afore-mentioned reasons, Topo School was converted to an orphanage and centre for juvenile delinquents.

At this time the contributions of Church Mission toward the development of literacy cannot be overemphasized. They contributed immensely by the use of Africans towards the development of local languages especially Igbo and Yoruba Languages to enhance literacy in the development of languages. You can recall that the purpose of mission schools was the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ and this could not have speedied up if the gospel would not be heard and read in the languages of the converts. It became necessary for the missions to embark on the translation of the relevant portions or the whole of the Bible in the languages of the taught. As Taiwo (1980:10) puts it: 

… the gospel was best spread in the language of the converts, that the printed word was a powerful transmitter of Christianity and civilization, and that books supplemented the efforts of the missionaries. The Yoruba and the Igbo languages are examples of the unifying force of a language among tribes who speak a variety of dialects.

Venn at this time saw to it that the missionaries pursued vigorously the study of local languages and he obtained for them experts advice and guidance. In 1959 Townsend established a Yoruba Journal 

“Iwe Irohin” (newspaper), which was published fortnightly. The object, Taiwo (1980), “is to get the people to read, that is, to beget the habit of seeking information by reading. It is very difficult.”

In addition to promoting read skill, the journal set out to educate the reading public which was estimated at 3,000 and to excite their intelligence. The journal was a big contribution to the spreading of literacy especially as there was little printed material in the Yoruba language.

We can see that the early Christian mission school was an adjunct of the church, for it was a replica of a similar development in Britain during the Dark ages.