Page 62 - Afrika Must Unite

THE INTELLECTUAL VANGUARD 47
But they served only a small part of the urban populations and a
minute section of the rural areas. The villages, where most of our
people live, boasted few schools; such as there were, were
operated mainly by the missions. The num ber of secondary
schools was limited, being based mainly in Cape Coast. These,
too, were largely the products of missionary endeavour. There
was the large semi-governmental institution at Achimota.
W hen we confronted the colonial administration with this
appalling situation on taking office at the beginning of 1951, they
told us that the budget was limited and time was needed. Time,
they said, was required to train the arm y of teachers needed for
the education of all the children. They did not look very happy
when we pointed out that they seemed to have had time enough
to allow the traders and shippers and mining companies to
amass huge fortunes. As for the budget, we made the point that it
did not seem inequitable to use part of those fortunes to educate
the children of the land from which they had been drawn. We
were determined, we said, to press for increased expenditure on
social services.
I cannot say that in the six years in which we formed a token
government under British administration, we were able to
register unqualified success with our educational plan. We
certainly did go some way towards laying the foundations of a
country-wide educational system. The plan which we proposed
in the Legislative Assembly in August 1951 provided for the
abolition of school fees in the prim ary schools as an initial step
towards a more comprehensive policy of free education. The
Rom an Catholic hierarchy strongly resented our decision to dis­
continue the subsidizing out of public funds of new schools owned
and managed by religious bodies. It was not our aim, as we
pointed out, to prevent the establishment and maintenance of
new schools by denominational bodies through voluntary
contributions, but they could not look to government for
financial support.
At the beginning of 1951, prim ary school enrolments stood at
125,000. At the beginning of 1952, there were 270,000 children
enrolled in our prim ary institutions and we estimated that this
num ber would reach 400,000 by the beginning of 1957. Actually,
at the time of independence in M arch 1957, the figure had