Higher Education and the Rise of Early Political Elites in Africa pdf

Abstract

Missionaries were the precursors of formal education in colonial times in Africa because schools were their main avenue s for conversion. A Roman Catholic missionary in Nigeria indeed once said, ‘Those who hold the schools hold  the country, hold its religion,  hold its future.’ And a recent author has concluded that, ‘Formal education soon became the bait with which the youn g generation was enticed to Christianity ’ in Africa.  This article argues that Western education and more precisely higher education, was the launching path to political elite status in Africa.