ABSTRACT
The history of school examinations is usually told in the context of educational developments at home or domestic administrative needs rather than with reference to imperial management. However, during the century from 1857 to 1957, the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) emerged in the colonies as the most prominent body awarding school-leaving certificates which became the passport to local employment in government, commerce and the professions. This chapter starts with an account of the foundation and growth of UCLES in the UK and then proceeds to survey the expansion and pioneering problems of the Syndicate overseas. During the inter-war period there was a reassessment of UCLES's colonial rôle and guidelines were set regarding the adjustment of examinations to local conditions and regarding liaison with educational authorities in the colonies, the Colonial Office and other examining boards in the UK. The educational expectations raised in the 1940s and 1950s meant that, as decolonisation approached, the Syndicate was playing a larger rôle than ever in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
