ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the tension between continuity and change in educational systems. The mix of countries represented in the chapter is particularly suited to examining the process of formation and change in educational traditions. One or two, for example China, have had a national identity for thousands of years. Others have been politically independent for a century or two. Others again, such as India and Sierra Leone, experienced long periods of colonial rule before gaining their independence along with the majority of colonial territories between the end of the Second World War and the early 1960s. Communities, such as the Creoles of Sierra Leone, later find schools being expected to deliver schemes of positive discrimination in favour of the majority who came later to a realization of the pivotal role of schools in access to paid employment. Naturally a great deal of planning is currently going on about the form and content of new post-liberation people's education.
