Education and change in a rural community: a study of colonial education and local response among the Chagga of Kilimanjaro between 1920 and 1945

The study examines the way the Chagga community in Kilimanjaro accepted western formal education and used the opportunity to enhance their own development. It is observed in the study that the position of Kilimanjaro, its physical features, the climate and soil fertility were some of the important features which attracted original Chagga settlements onto the environs of Mount Kilimanjaro. These same features appear to have attracted outside visitors to Kilimanjaro, including Swahili traders from the east coast and early European travellers and explorers looking for a foothold on the African soil for western economic and political interests. The same features seem also to account, at least partly, for the way the Chagga responded to the western socio-economic trust, especially with regard to western-type formal education and the growing of cash crops. The Chagga, like a number of other African communities, were quick to demonstrate keen interest in western education, but, primarily as a way to strengthen their own political defence and economic and social well-being. The study observes, however, that the western type of formal education as it was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators formed part of a general strategy of softening the indigenous man, “westernising” him in outlook, and hence enhancing western economic an political penetration. And as such, it was used to transform Chagga culture, beliefs and value systems to prepare way for colonial economic interests. Here was the potential area of conflict of interests and aspirations between the Western “mordernizer and the local African recipient. The Chagga, and especially the local elite and their traditional leaders, did at the beginning reject missionary education as they discovered that it undermined their culture and opposed the traditions of their fathers. They, however, realised that education was necessary before one could be accepted into the new socio-economic structure and political system under colonial rule. They therefore struggled to acquire state secular education so as not to be left out of the new socio-political order. From time to time the British colonial office, through its Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, issued memoranda to guide the colonial governments on how they should formulate education policies which would ensure that the educational process supported the economic interests of the metropole, and missions were required to assist the government in this task. Tanganyika, like the other colonial governments, passed legislations and formulated regulations which ensured that education was administered and used in line with the wishes and interests of the British government. And missions were required to work closely with the government to ensure the success of the policy. As a result, the administrative system in Tanganyika developed a very strong central control of education by the government. As it turned out, the legislations and regulations introduced by the government deprived the African subjects of the freedom to control their own education. In fact, in their quest to provide education to their children, they did struggle to build schools on a self-help basis, but had to encounter hardships since in order to get the schools registered with the government, they were obliged to seek the help, co-operation and recommendation of the missions, who in turn seized the chance to take over the control and management of the schools originally built by the people themselves. In Kilimanjaro, the running of education was left entirely in the hands of the two rival Christian denominations working in the area. And as it turned out, the Chagga local dignitaries (the chiefs and their kin) were left without education. It was therefore these (elites and chiefs) who were the first to organise and lead self-help activities with a view to building schools which would provide their children with education free from Missionary influence and direct alien control. This, then, saw the earnest beginning and growing momentum of African initiative among the Chagga of Kilimanjaro. It was during the times of international crisis, when missionaries were interned or sent our of the country as enemy nationals, that Chagga efforts to build schools on their own, free from mission control, became possible and effective. In fact, it was during the second World War period that the Chagga succeeded in introducing a self-imposed education tax and raised funds to support a large-scale expansion of education which was free from mission control and direct government control. It was this time that a large number of Native Authority schools were, for the first time, built in most chiefdoms throughout Kilimanjaro, and that Chagga self-reliance work reached its peak. The success of Chagga efforts could be attributed to three things. Firstly, the large number of small and weak Chagga Native treasuries had been amalgamated into a single large and strong treasury under the Chagga Council which raised adequate funds to support large-scale education expansion. Secondly, growing of coffee as a cash crop had gained wide acceptance among the Chagga and the Community was generating enough cash to be able to support educational expansion on a self-reliance basis. Thirdly, the Chagga efforts were helped by the support they received from some sympathetic, even though very few, progressive colonial administrators and the untiring efforts of committed Chagga leaders. It has been concluded that Western education was not accepted by all communities in Tanganyika for a variety of reasons. In some communities education was identified with forces that were disrupting the values and beliefs of the people, and as a result it was rejected. Other communities were simply not exposed to the Western influence and therefore they did not have the opportunity to receive western education. Yet, other communities had connected education with individual (hence family and community) improvement and as a result they had accepted it. It is proposed that some of the finding that some of the findings of the study should be used to assist in the formulating of a more viable education policy for Tanzania. A policy that will make education community based and therefore maintained and supported by the community on a self-reliance basis.