Imperialism, Social Control and the Colonial Curriculum in Africa*

One of the commonest assertions to be found in accounts of schooling in less developed countries in Africa is that the present day education systems of these countries are trapped, and inhibited in their development, by the legacies of the colonial past. Furthermore, it is normally taken for granted, both by indigenous writers and Western commentators, that these legacies stem directly from the imposition of forms of Western, academic schooling by the colonial power. While accepting the former assertion as undoubtedly true, I intend in this paper to challenge fundamentally the latter assumption of colonial imposition. I have four main arguments to put forward.