Educational Change in Pre-Colonial Societies: The Cases of Buganda and Ashanti

Abstract

Two pre-colonial African kingdoms, Ashanti and Buganda, are compared in an attempt to determine why some societies accept foreign innovations in education more readily than others. After discussing the merits of the thesis that certain social structures possess a greater inherent assimilative capacity than others, another proposition is advanced, suggesting that a favorable political relationship with potential sources of innovation is a necessary condition for their acceptance. Of the two cases considered, only in Buganda did the leaders have a favorable relationship with foreign traders and missionaries whose new arrangements for education were eagerly welcomed, at least by some. On the other hand, the Ashanti rulers were inhibited from acceptance of such innovations by an unbreachable impasse in diplomatic relations with the major foreign power concerned, Britain. This impasse in turn prevented the stable presence of missionaries, who might otherwise have introduced more modern forms of education.