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The story of formal education in Nigeria reads like
a relay race. From the hands of the missionaries the school system has
passed to Nigerians. But the change of baton did not happen overnight.
It was a slow-grinding process spanning more than a century.
At the dawn of the 20th century, western
education was already entrenched in the whole of Nigeria. However, it
was more noticeable in the Lagos colony and the southern protectorate
than in the northern protectorate where Islamic education was more widespread.
In fact the northern Emirs did not encourage Christian missionaries
to set up schools in their domain.
Education was purely a tool for evangelisation and the
Christian missions made no pretence about it. Their primary aim was to
convert and also train Nigerians who would facilitate the spread of the
gospel.
The colonial government gave the missions a free hand
in the running schools. The colonial government first showed interest
in education through the provision of grants-in-aid to secondary schools
and scholarships.
Education was entirely British. British history and value
systems were taught in Nigerian schools. African traditions and culture
were considered unfit to be incorporated in the school curriculum.
But before independence in1960 Nigerians who were products
of the British colonial education system began to challenge the colonial
education policies. These educationists questioned the inherent anomalies
in the colonial system of education.
By 1955, Alvan Ikoku, president of the Nigeria Union
of Teachers, NUT, led the union to demand for a uniform education system
for Nigeria. It was turned down by the colonial government. When Kenneth
Dike wanted to use oral tradition in his research for Ph.D thesis he was
refused but he didn’t give up. When he finished his work it opened
a new vista in historiography.
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