ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of the FBC curriculum in the last four decades of the twentieth century with particular emphasis on its relevance to local culture. It is during this period that FBC gained its independence from Durham University and became part of the University of Sierra Leone. FBC also established an Institute of African Studies at the beginning of the period. At the same time, the newly independent government of Sierra Leone as well as external donors played important roles in setting “development” priorities that affected higher education. The following analysis examines the impact of government funding and international assistance on higher education in Sierra Leone. Development education did not emphasize traditional culture or the liberal arts. Koso Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone from 1985 to 1991, lamented this emphasis:
the fundamental role of education in any country must be the fulfillment of the spiritual and material requirements of society. In developing countries, however, the haste to produce much more of their own skilled manpower has resulted in a sad neglect in their educational programmes, of those aspects of culture and art, which form the essential ingredients for developing moral and spiritual values in an educated man.1
