Why did the British introduce a government school?

University Degree Education and Teaching

History SBA

Kejan Johnson-Haynes

Centre no.: 1646

Queen’s Royal College

Education

‘The School mirrored the society which created them. With the advent of QRC and CIC in the 1850’s and 1860’s, thing range of schools supported by Public Funds was brought in line with the social assumption of a race and colour conscious community’ –Carl Campbell

Name the grant which the British government used to provide funds for school buildings and teacher training.

Apart from race and colour, identify two other features in society which were reflected in the schools.

Give two examples to show how education supported a colour conscious community.

What year was the Queen’s Collegiate School built?

Why did the British introduce a government school?

How did she achieve her aims?

Name the grant which the British Government used to provide funds for school buildings and teacher training.

The grant, which the government used to provide funds for school buildings and teachers’ training was the Negro Education Grant of 1835. 30 000 pounds were allocated for this purpose.

Prior to 1835, the West Indian government spent very little on education, especially primary school education. While parents saw education as a means to provide social stability for their children, the land owners saw education as irrelevant in the agricultural community.

Although the government provided funds for maintenance of schools and salary for teachers, they had no control over how the money was spent. Neither was there any surveillance over the quality or the qualifications of the teachers. Education therefore was still in the hands of private institutions and the churches.

Apart from race and colour, identify two other features in society which were reflected in the schools

Apart from race and colour, two other factors in society that were reflected in schools were Religion and Language.

After emancipation, from the 1830’s to the 1860’s, education for most children meant basic primary schooling. The Catholic and Protestant churches were the first institutions to set up and run primary schools in Trinidad and Tobago. During slavery and even after, churches played an important part in the conversion of slaves to Christianity. However, the Catholic Church was very different in their views from that of the Church of England – each having its own methods and reasoning for converting the slaves.

Rivalries between religions for converts were keen, and both churches vied with each other to increase their flocks. During this time, the prohibition against giving education to the Africans had been abolished and the offer of schooling to these ex-slaves was the attractive way to create converts. The various denominations were then encouraged to start schools.

The quality of education in these schools however, were said to be low. Instructions in these schools were given in English, while the children of these former slaves spoke both French and Patois, as a result of the plantation system, namely the Spanish, the French Creoles and the French Language. Then too, the idea of Catholicism was firmly established in the hierarchical structure of society.

A state school system, which was secular and free and in the hands of the government was established with a school in every ward under the control of a board of education with salaried inspectors, with the heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches on the board. Instructions were to be entirely secular but each week at stated times, the clergymen of the majority faith in the ward would undertake to teach religion. These people who once opposed the idea of Ward Schools, had reluctantly accepted the idea of secular education in the primary schools.

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It was not until the setting up of the Queen’s Collegiate in Port of Spain that the conflict arose again. The Catholic Clergy had come out strongly against the principle of secular education for their students. They did not mind secular education in primary school but opposed secular education in what they termed “classical education” – namely secondary education.

They in turn opened The College of the Immaculate Conception (CIC), staffed by Fathers of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, as a rival to the Queen’s Collegiate (QRC). They were able to cater to a wider range of society than did QRC, but they too had their share of problems especially concerning Language.

Many of the Holy Ghost Fathers were French and taught in their own language. This was offensive to those who felt that progress was simply the spread of the English feelings and institutions and the eradication of foreign influence. The confusion of languages made reading and writing difficult and the children’s knowledge of geography and arithmetic bad.

When Lord Harris assumed governorship in 1845, there were already 54 primary schools in Trinidad, many of them organised by different churches. He however was interested in mass education and noted that education was essential for the lower classes to “fit them for freedom”. He felt that education should not be handed over to the denominations since they were competing for increased numbers in their congregations.

For example, with the Irish system of education, children over the age of fourteen were only allowed to attend school if they could prove that they were regular church-goers. Younger children also had to prove that they were receiving religious instructions. The special case of the Muslim and Hindu children, who in 1846 had no teachers of their own, had not been considered. Later, the Presbyterians were able to address the problem of converting the Indians and teaching them the English Language

The British system of education became the answer to the language barrier that evolved in the schools, with textbooks being ordered from England. The Government requested a man experienced in training teachers from Ireland to come to the island to train the educators to teach in the schools. This meant that everyone had to learn to speak, read and write English, thus putting to an end the confusion, which existed in schools because of the different languages spoken by the various classes of people.

Bibliography

Brereton, Bridget- Social Life in the Caribbean 1838-1938

2) Campbell, Carl- Colony and Nation: A Short History of Education

in Trinidad.

Greenwood, R. & Hamber, S., Development and Decolonisation

Wood, Donald, Trinidad in Transition

Newspaper articles

Newsday Millennium Special, Saturday Jan 1, 2000, Lord Harris:

Live and Learn.

Newsday Historical Digest, Sunday 29 October, 2000, Education and the First Model Schools.

Newsday Historical Digest, Sunday 27 May, 2001, History of Immigration & West Indian Immigration

Give two examples of to show how education supported a colour conscious community

Two examples which showed how education supported a colour conscious community can be found in the type of schools built and who were to be educated.

Very little was done after emancipation to educate the children of former slaves. Education as the universal right of man had not yet been considered. Landowners were still of the belief that as soon as children of former slaves could spell “hoe and whip” they should be sent back in the field. They felt that educating the blacks who worked on the fields would make them adverse to agriculture and so ruin the economy and create upheavals in society. It was also the belief that the Nature of the Negro man was such that he was “uneducable and inferior, with childish traits which society could repress but which could not be removed by education”.

The society was divided. Although the upper class in society was looking for a means of integrating, they still tried to maintain their own position at the top of society. Education was opened to all as a means of advancement. In each Ward, there were one or more primary school and in each district there was a school where pupils of “superior intelligence” could be sent. While in Port-of-Spain a “normal school” was established. These schools were under the control of separate boards.

There was a separation of Local and Central Government and the expenses of the schools of the Local Government were met by a rate levied on the owners of property and land. The costs of the Ward schools, where education was to be entirely secular and free was to be met from the Ward rate. A “normal school” was set up with funds from the colonial government to train teachers and Model Schools attached to them for the teachers to practice. A fee was charged for entry to this model school.

Peasants and labourers who were faced with low wages and unemployment, could not afford school fees and even where education was free, they were unable to clothe their children decently for school. Their children were needed to help them in the farm with their marketing. The girls stayed at home and looked after babies or did house work. Parents were illiterate, and because of pressure of the “colonial white” for labourers, the parents did not see education as necessary for their children.

The ward schools were poorly maintained and neglected by those who were put in charge of them. These schools were starved of funds and were forced to operate on very low standards both in terms of physical conditions and teacher efficiency, which caused many working class parents to lose interest in the schools. The church schools flourished even after the government grant was take away from them since they had the support of the clergy. With the setting up of a college for boys, in Port-of-Spain (POS) for the upper classes, questions were being raised.

After the first government college was opened in 1859, dubbed the “godless college” by the Catholics, it was realised that the curriculum excluded scientific and agriculture subjects, and catered for the “well-endowed” youths in liberal arts. Boys from the countryside could not attend this college because no provision was made for borders and unless these boys could find their own lodging in POS, they could not attend.

Boys therefore who attended this college were children of professional men, the Anglican clergy, merchants and public servants. All pupils had to pay a term’s fee of 14 pounds, except those whose fathers died in public service. Therefore only the comparatively wealthy could afford to send their sons to school and these were mainly the whites. Blacks were excluded since the rate of illegitimacy was high among them, and legitimacy was one of the requirements for entrance into this school.

However, with the advent of this college, the doors were opened for more secondary schools to be established which were mainly church schools. Although blacks were still unable to attend in numbers, many of the lower class whites were privileged to this secondary education. Later, however, scholarships called “Exhibitions” were established for entry into these two colleges. As a result, more boys of African and Indian origin were able to enter the school system.

Following close on the heels of these new colleges (QRC), (CIC) for boys, were the establishment of a girls’ convent which was opened in 1870 by a French Madam, d’Heureux. This allowed not only boys to be educated but girls as well.

What year was the Queen’s Collegiate School built?

Why did the British introduce a government school?

How did she achieve her aims?

The Queen’s Collegiate School, now called Queen’s Royal College (Q.R.C.), was opened on Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain, in 1859. In 1870 the college was inaugurated in the Princes Building (Queen’s Park West) and on the 25th of March 1904, the new Q.R.C. building was erected on Maraval Road, opposite the Queen’s Park Savannah, where it still stands.

The British introduced a government school since they felt that schools should be free and secular and under the control of a board of education. Lord Harris who was governor at the time was interested in mass education especially for the lower class, but at the same time spoke of educating the boys only. He felt that education should not be handed over to the denominations, which at that time controlled the majority of primary schools. He wanted a state school system, which would be in the hands of the government as well as a system for higher education. The school would be allowed weekly visits by the clergy of the majority faith, with parents free to withdraw then children if they wished.

The Catholic Church which by 1866 had become stronger and had gained financially because of the French influence, did not agree to state-run schools. They agreed to state-aided denominational schools since they believed a state run school was “godless” and damaging to Catholic youth. A recommendation was made that the church schools should be allowed state aid under certain circumstances. To this, the Catholic Church agreed and the education ordinance of 1870 was put into effect. This was a dual system of education with state-supported church schools operating alongside government schools.

This made way for a Royal College of Trinidad, which made the catholic run school, College of the Immaculate Conception (CIC) affiliated to Queen’s Collegiate College. This meant that CIC could be on par with the QRC, which by that time had excelled academically but not socially. Both schools therefore, could then accept scholarship boys from Primary Schools.

In this regard, the British did achieve her aims, but not entirely as it was expected, since QRC did not cater wholly to the lower class because of their stand on the entry of illegitimate students to the school. Also, the school did not make allowance for boarding students who came from the country district. However, where QRC fell through, CIC picked up since they had no policy on illegitimacy and they provided boarding for the students who came for the country.

Since CIC depended wholly on donation and fees, it still excluded the poor but they were able to draw more pupils from the less exclusive class than QRC did and by 1870 CIC had twice as many students as did the Collegiate.

By the mid 1860s education had done little to build up a society with sound, lasting principles, but as least for the British they had made headway in achieving their aims to open a Government school for Post Primary Education, and an attempt at educating the boys of the lower class population. Later, there were the model schools for girls and boys which is now known as Tranquillity Boys and Girls, which offered Post Primary education to children who did not come from the higher classes.

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