This study investigates the foundations and development of the education systems in five former British colonies: India, Ghana, Jamaica, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. Observing the similarities and differences within and among those nations regarding the state of education before, during, and after formal colonization, we analyze the influence that the British “mother system” had on each of them, as well as the influence of the particularities of colonization. Colonialism is perhaps one of the most peculiar phenomena the world has seen in the past centuries. The rise and fall of the colonial powers, the British chief among them, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have left behind vestiges in almost every aspects of life in the countries once under its rule, such as the English language, administrative and governance structures, economic and legal systems, ideologies of knowledge and primacy of Western culture, mechanisms of social stratification, and various conflicts (including racial, ethnic, religious, etc.). Meyer, Ramirez, and Soysal (1992) argue that the development of educational systems, and specifically systems of mass education, appeared with the spread of Western principles of citizenship and state control, which were often fostered by colonization. In the context of former colonies, Noah (1984) points out that this spread or diffusion of educational practices and structures were “implant[ed] or impos[ed]” (p. 556). At the time of their respective periods of independence from Great Britain, many nations took after and built upon what was left behind, including the system of education. Educational systems in former colonies developed both with characteristics that were inherited or borrowed from the system of education in the nation of the colonial power as well as characteristics that were locally adapted.

In addition, this paper compares and contrasts system characteristics through the lens of colonial discourse analysis and post-colonial theory. Post-colonial theory and colonial discourse analysis provide analytical tools for understanding contemporary systems of education. Post-colonial theory operates within the complex and interrelated territories of how the present is shaped by, a reproducer of, and distinct from its social and historical context (Williams & Chrisman, 1994). Looking within and across the development of these five educational systems, this paper explores how and in what ways the essence of the colonial education system endures. In other words, what remnants of the colonial education system are present in the post-colonial education system? Do the same patterns of stratification persist into the formation of the education systems of independence? Understanding the foundations and development of education systems in former colonies has important implications for the influence, both past and present, of colonialism. 

George, A. L., & Bennett, A. (2005). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Meyer, J. W., Ramirez, F. O., & Soysal, Y. N. (1992). World expansion of mass education, 1870-1980. Sociology of education, 128-149. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Moss, P.A., & Haertel, E. H. (In press). Methodology. In D. Gitomer, & C. Bell (Eds.), Handbook of Research in Teaching (5th Ed.). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Noah, H. (1984). The use and abuse of comparative education. Comparative Education Review, 28(4), 550-562. Williams, P., & Chrisman, L. (Eds.). (1994). Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.