The Export of Ideas to Africa

Abstract

Some time ago I became involved in one of Britain's minor export industries, the G.C.E. Advanced Level examinations (overseas). A minor industry in terms of economic return, but a major one in terms of the export of ideas, and it is with the actual concepts that are exported that I wish to concern myself. It may be as well to declare the limitations of my sample—about 800 scripts from Ghana and Nigeria over the last two years—and to make it perfectly plain that the defects I attempt to demonstrate in the students' understanding of British politics stem from British and not African errors.