Introduction

Abstract

Ideas about the role of education in national development have changed greatly during the last thirty years. Before the mid-twentieth century, Westerners thought education had little to offer the underdeveloped world, especially the colonized regions of Africa and South Asia. They saw little prospect for modernization because underdevelopment was attributed to immutable factors like climate and race. Colonial education was directed towards preparing a small indigenous elite to become clerks and junior civil servants in local bureaucracies.