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p The training of national personnel is one of the most important tasks confronting the newly independent countries of Africa on the way to achieving genuine independence and the final elimination of the consequences of colonial rule.

p The imperialist powers approach the question of training national personnel in Africa from several positions. Firstly, since they have an economic interest in increasing the role of the liberated countries as a source of profits and, consequently, in their development, they are obliged to provide the young states with help in organising systems of general and specialised education, while trying, however, to retain full control over this process. Secondly, the imperialist powers try to use their influence on the formation of national personnel in order to exert general ideological pressure on broad sectors of local opinion. Thirdly, the training of local personnel is viewed by the West as the means of creating a new social support in the liberated countries; it will be the vehicle of bourgeois ideas and will help neocolonialism to achieve its main goal—the retention of the developing countries within the system of the capitalist mode of production.

p Thus, the imperialist powers appear to be united as regards the aims and tasks in this sphere, and there seems to be nothing that would give rise to contradictions. Yet there is bitter rivalry here too. It is explained by the fact that the training of national personnel in the liberated 244 countries is also indissolubly linked with the prospects for the exercise of political influence on them by the capitalist state which is controlling the process.

p The imperialists themselves make no secret of the fact that it is now a matter of their national interests—a question of which of the imperialist powers will acquire a decisive influence in a particular developing country. The former metropolises are jealously preserving their supremacy in the training of national personnel, and their main competitors are’the USA and the FRG.

p Pointing out that there is a constant stream of people from all over the world into British universities and that this is "a stream which must be preserved, whatever its marginal cost to the overstrained economics of British education”, the journal The Political Quarterly concluded significantly: "Britain’s major universities are still international centres of learning and, if they do not remain such, the loss of this position will be as much a disaster in the long run to Britain as a naval defeat would have been in the days when sea power was the dominant force in history.”^^1^^ The explanation for this is that, owing to the disintegration of the colonial empire, British ruling circles have proceeded to create an extensive system of attracting to Britain students from the former colonies in order to give them an education within the British tradition and to “unobtrusively” mould their general view of the world in a way that suits the former metropolis. The process of saturating the liberated countries with British teachers went hand In hand with this. The true objectives of these measures are revealed in a statement made by the former Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy, Christopher Mayhew: "In the battle for international influence we shall at last be fully deploying our most powerful weapon—the English language. . . .The world’s demand for teachers of English will be insatiable, and will provide Britain with a superb opportunity to help and befriend developing countries.”^^2^^ The British Minister equates assisting education in the developing countries with "the battle for international influence”. There is good reason for this. The need to “grant” political independence to the colonies and trust territories gave rise to the problem for British imperialism of creating a new "human infrastructure" in the 245 liberated countries, capable of preserving the British position in changed circumstances. As Lenin pointed out, neocolonialism is, like any other policy, "conducted through people”. Like the other Western powers, Britain saw that the difficulty could be resolved only by specially training the young states’ governing personnel and by promoting it to key posts in the state, party and trade union machinery.

p The main British method for creating a new social support in the liberated countries came to be the training of “allies” of Britain from various strata of the local population. From the beginning of the sixties Britain’s foreign policy-makers and the political science serving these circles increasingly appreciated the obvious fact that military force could no longer be employed against young states that had won their political independence and that methods involving economic pressure were insufficient. They needed other channels of direct and indirect political influence—in other words, people occupying posts in the state machinery, the army, the police, the political parties and trade unions, in the economic sphere, etc., who would obediently act in accordance with the interests of British imperialism.

p Britain employs many methods for training its supporters in the young states of Africa. One important method is to “Anglicise” selected persons. In his book Independence and After the British sociologist Richard Harris states, for example, that in most cases the native of a developing country returning home after spending several years in British educational establishments is unlikely to participate in struggle against imperial rule, since ”. . .British example is here the only one worth quoting"/’

p According to Harris, Anglicised men and the governments they form only appear formally to be independent. The author is, of course, exaggerating the role of the method he suggests. Certainly not all the students from the liberated countries that were once British colonies become “Anglicised”. Nevertheless, London is at great pains to retain control over the training of personnel, especially for the English-speaking countries of Africa.

p Incidentally, it should be noted that the “Anglicisation” theory is not an invention of Harris’s. He has simply given a pseudo-scientific form to a thesis advanced by Anthony 246 Eden while he was the Prime Minister of Britain. Referring to the steps to be taken to preserve British influence in Cyprus, Eden pointed out to the Colonial Secretary that "There might be much to be gained by the provision of an institution of university status, linked with our own universities, which would help to wean the Cypriots away from the cultural attraction of Athens".^^4^^

p Of the practical steps taken by Britain the most important was the throwing open of the doors of British universities and other educational establishments to students from the young states. There were over 45,000 students from the newly independent states in Britain in 1963. In 1967 the number of foreign students in this category had already reached 53,700 (of whom 44,411 came from Commonwealth countries), and in 1970 the figure was over 70,000, of whom about 11,000 were Africans. At the same time, the stream of British teachers sent to the liberated countries increased.

p In dealing with the task of training and fostering “Anglicised” personnel in the developing countries through the method of “controlled” university education, the British ruling circles are constantly perfecting the co-ordinating and administrative bodies necessary for the job. The Association of Universities of the British Commonwealth was founded in 1948. In 1963 it was renamed the Association of Commonwealth Universities. It co-ordinates and controls the activities of about 150 higher educational establishments in more than 20 countries.

p The Association annually sends 150 professors and lecturers to overseas universities to carry out the "agreed higher education policy”, i.e., the policy that is in the interests of the former metropolis. The Association also regulates the flow of students from the liberated countries into British universities. In 1964-65 consideration was given to a proposal for setting up a special university for Commonwealth students in London. However, the idea was rejected since it was felt that, in order to set coloured students in a proBritish mould, it was better to disperse them among all the British educational establishments.

p The stepping up of inter-imperialist rivalry in the training of national personnel for the African countries, and also the growing influence in this field of the states of the 247 socialist community compelled the ruling circles of Britain to introduce organisational reforms in 1970.

p Their aim is to further centralise the administration and control of the educational systems of the newly independent countries.

p A new Centre for Educational Development Overseas (CEDO), set up by the Ministry for Overseas Development, was opened in London on the 1 April 1970. It is part of CEDO’s functions "to provide information, advice and other help to those concerned with the modernisation of education at all levels".^^5^^ CEDO maintains a close liaison with the British Council. British Council representatives in the developing countries will also act as representatives for CEDO. The new body’s practical functions involve the creation of local educational centres and systems in the developing countries, the organisation of training in Britain and locally for teachers and directors of educational establishments and the introduction of new teaching methods, including the use of radio and television.

p Typically enough, the activities of this body extend beyond the Commonwealth countries. It has representatives, for example, in Ethiopia and a number of other African states.

p France has also taken urgent measures to protect the zones of her interests in Africa from the ideological expansion of the USA and her other competitors. The French had an easier time than the British in this respect, since France’s system of direct colonial rule had enabled her to deal in advance with many of the staffing questions in the dependent countries. Then, through the agreements on collaboration in education that had been concluded with the former colonies, their school system and further and higher educational establishments were placed under the complete control of Paris. The French language was the only medium of instruction, the syllabuses were those of France and the teachers were French. John Hargreaves, Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen (USA), observes: "The French, even more concerned than the British that standards at the peak of the educational system should be as high as those in France, proceeded very cautiously toward the creation of University institutions in Africa. . . .” This 248 was necessary "to train Africans for the highest position. . . .”^^6^^

p Carefully pursuing their adopted course, the French Government sent teaching staff on a massive scale to the former African colonies immediately after they had attained independence. In 1968 there were about 28,000 French teachers in the countries of French-speaking Africa, together with some 1,260 lecturers in further and higher educational establishments. In these same countries there are also several dozen purely French schools and a host of lecture foundations of the institute type.

p In order to control this network, special administrative organs were set up in Paris, headed by the State Secretariat for the Affairs of Overseas Departments and Territories and the State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for collaboration with the countries of Tropical Africa. Among the main French institutions dealing with the training and retraining of national personnel are the University Association for the Development of Education and Culture in Africa and Madagascar, the Committee for Developing Scientific Exchanges between the French-Language Universities, the Foundation for Higher Education in Central Africa, the International Institute of State Administration, the International Institute of Law of the French-Speaking Countries and a number of others. In all, some 260 different organisations are active in the field.

p Paris devotes particular attention to the French-speaking African countries’ military personnel. It is stipulated in agreements that such personnel must be trained only in France. In 1968-69 2,600 African servicemen, including 673 Algerians, were being trained in French military colleges. Apart from this, in order to give "aid on the spot" with the building up of the African countries’ armed forces, French instructors and special missions are there on a permanent basis. In 1969 there were 18 such missions and a total of about 2,500 commissioned and non-commissioned officers.

p The Universities of Dakar, Tananarive, Abidjan, Yaounde and Porto Novo and a centre for higher education in Brazzaville were founded with French help and staffed with French lecturers. The French authorities are keeping a 249 jealous eye on these universities, so as to ensure that not a single lecturer from any other country joins them without French permission.

p The number of Africans studying in France is also constantly growing. In the 1959/60 academic year there were about 3,000 of them, and in 1968/69 over 6,000, or 15 per cent of the total number of foreign students at French centres of higher education. Typically enough, the overwhelming majority of the Africans are reading arts subjects. This reflects the tendency of the French ruling circles to give priority to ensuring the political and cultural influence of the former metropolis in the young states. This purpose is also served by the Association for the Instruction and Reception of Overseas Technicians, set up in 1960 under the auspices of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and the Economy and a number of private foundations. The Association not only caters for the trainees’ specialised education, but also sees to it that they are ideologically indoctrinated in a pro-French vein. Every trainee receives individual treatment throughout his stay in France, and contact is maintained with him by correspondence after his departure. This process of “Gallicisation” is a direct continuation of the system of assimilating people from the developing countries.

p In 1963 France created a counterpart to the American "Peace Corps"—the "Volunteers for Progress”. The committee in charge of this association is headed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The main body of the “Volunteers” is made up of conscripts who have been excused military service. After special training they are sent to African countries as teachers, agricultural or medical instructors and so on. The "Volunteers for Progress" generally appear in places to which American helpers also come. The main task of the “Volunteers” is really to outdo or dislodge their transatlantic colleagues.

p An indication of the significance that France’s ruling circles attribute to the training of national personnel for their former African colonies is provided by the fact that the issue has been elevated to the level of national policy and comes within the province of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry is directly responsible for 250 promoting the French language in the developing countries and for “assisting” them in the training of national personnel.

p Naturally, the efforts made by London and Paris to retain control over the training of national personnel for their former possessions are not merely determined by the factor of the inter-imperialist struggle and by the need to resist the rivalry of their competitors. At one and the same time, they comprise both an important element in the strategy of British and French neo-colonialism as a whole, an attempt to regulate the further growth of national awareness in the liberated countries, and a form of resistance to the growing ideological influence of these countries from the socialist states. However, the policies of their imperialist competitors in this field, especially the USA, provoke counter-measures by both Britain and France, as can be seen from American statements and practical measures that have a bearing on the question of African personnel.

p US Secretary of State William Rogers’ report to President Nixon entitled The United States and Africa in the Seventies^^1^^ declares unambiguously that "Africans have taken much of their political inspiration from the United States .. .” and goes on to say that "More than a few Africans who studied in America became leaders of independence of their countries. ...” Making the point later that the governments of many African countries are headed by young leaders, Rogers recommends that special attention should be given to programmes for “co-operation” with young Africans "in preparation for their present and future responsibilities”. He also defines the main areas for this co-operation—- education, technical training and “support” within the framework of the "Peace Corps”. There is nothing fundamentally new in these ideas. Sargent Shriver, the "Peace Corps‘s” former Director, used to say that the members of his organisation were preparing new generations of national leaders who would later look to the USA. The importance of American control over the education of young Africans was stressed, for example, by Professor Victor Le Vine of Stanford University in his book Political Leadership in Africa.^^8^^ Unlike Rogers with his vague formulations, those who specialise in “Americanising” young Africans use precise definitions and 251 declare that it is a matter of creating a broad stratum of US “supporters” in Africa, i.e., a buttress for American imperialism.

p The practical steps taken by Washington in the training of African personnel give a clear demonstration of the fact that social expansion is currently becoming more than just one of the most important means whereby international capital exerts a class influence on the nation-building and development process in the liberated countries. It is also a weapon for strengthening the positions of individual imperialist powers. It is typical, for example, that over half the Africans trained with the help of the USA are government officials, workers in the ideological sectors, teachers, specialists in the co-operative movement and so on. When the US Congress was deliberating on the question of providing training for African students in 1965, it was pointed out that political changes occurred unexpectedly, and their consequences would cost America dear unless she took substantial and timely measures to train well-qualified and capable leaders.^^9^^

p America’s ruling circles took these measures. US state expenditure alone on the training of personnel for the young states has increased by 11 times over the past 15 years and is now running at over 200 million dollars a year. Increased allocations resulted from the programmes approved by John Kennedy (1961) and Lyndon Johnson (1967). The training of personnel is also given "high priority" in Richard Nixon’s African programme. Apart from courses for students, the USA also provides training schemes for young national specialists. For example, in Cambridge (Massachusetts) a private firm of business consultants, Arthur D. Little, organises 10-month courses for African businessmen. Also noteworthy is the fact that in Africa itself 77 per cent of the national graduates are regularly used by AID missions to carry out specific assignments, i.e., the Americans provide work for a high percentage of the young specialists trained with the help of the USA, which also serves to make this aid more popular.

p Ever since the African countries were freed, their education systems began to attract the close attention of the USA and soon became an object of inter-imperialist rivalry. In 1954-55 there were 1,234 African students in the USA, or 252 3.6 per cent of the total number of foreign students; in 1964-68 there were 6,865 of them (8 per cent), and in 1968- 69 approximately 15,000 (18 per cent). The increase mainly involved students from the English-speaking countries of Africa, i.e., Britain’s former possessions. For instance, in 1965 there were 1,382 students from Nigeria in the USA, 305 from Tanzania, 282 from Ghana, 774 from Kenya, 223 from Uganda, 390 from South Africa and 203 from Rhodesia. There was also a total of 581 students sent by Liberia and Ethiopia. French-speaking Africa was only represented by Guinea and Zaire, each of which sent about 100 students. There has been no substantial change in the ratio since then.

p The ASPAU programme, a curious patronage system for educating Africans which embraces over 200 American colleges and universities, has been functioning in the USA since 1960. In 1967-68 this programme provided 1,306 places for African students in America. Again the bulk of the students were from English-speaking countries of East and West Africa.

p It is worth mentioning that the Americans are giving considerable attention to the question of educating Africans from Southern Africa, mainly political emigres. The AfricanAmerican Institute has built a number of special schools for them in Tanzania and Zambia. In the USA the question is handled by the organisation known as SASP (Special African Student Program), founded by the State Department. In 1965 this programme already provided places for 339 students from Southern Africa in the USA, and later their numbers grew by 120 every year. The programme forms part of a long-term policy, a blow in the future battle for influence in the southern part of the continent. This, in fact, is the way in which the personnel for Southern Africa, so necessary to the USA’s long-tern plans, is being trained. As Rupert Emerson comments, these people are being "educated to shoulder the responsibilities which will, be it sooner or later, come their way”,^^10^^ i.e., when their countries achieve independence. The nature and aims of this measure are also revealed by officials. Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Refugees and Escapes the US Assistant Secretary of State for African 253 Affairs Mennen Williams declared: "The education the students receive here will help prepare them to make a responsible, constructive contribution to the development of Africa and to provide intelligent and democratic leadership to their people.”^^11^^ In London voices have frequently been raised in protest against the American measures insofar as they have affected emigres from South Africa and, especially, Rhodesia, which formally still has the status of a British colony.

p The Americans are also trying to dislodge the British from positions which they are going to particular lengths to fortify. For example, the University of East Africa and the Universities of Botswana and Lesotho now receive “aid” from AID and the Ford Foundation. US expansion is particularly vigorous in the field of education in the East African countries. The main feature of American “aid” to Kenya is the fact that it goes mainly on extending the system of general and specialised education. Effort is concentrated on training administrative staff and recruits for the army and police force, building youth clubs and schools to teach modern farming methods and expanding university education. These programmes and activities are led by specialists from the United States of America.

p These tactics result from planning in advance. This is borne out by the fact that immediately after the declaration of Kenya’s independence, the USA set to work to build 17 schools there, 6 colleges, 19 farm study centres, an administrative institute, a medical school and so on. The 11 December 1968 saw the opening of a new Faculty of Engineering block, built with American money. In 1969 AID provided 33 teachers’ training college lecturers and 133 secondary school teachers for work in Kenya. In Uganda an institute for training administrative staff and a number of other educational establishments were built with US aid. The special Teachers for East Africa Program was adopted and is now being implemented.

p Over 80 per cent of the Africans currently studying in the USA come from the English-speaking countries of Africa, and especially East Africa. The campaign is already beginning to yield results. Ali Mazrui writes: "Both the numbers in absolute terms and the proportion of Africans studying in the United States have been rising steadily over 254 the years. The skills and the intellectual habits that these students acquire in the course of their training in the United States are bound to have some kind of cumulative influence on certain aspects of national life in their own countries."^^12^^

p Education is not the sort of field in which inter-imperialist contradictions are resolved in the form of bitter clashes. The resistance offered to a competitor in this sphere is of the hidden, but persistent, kind. William Attwood, the former US Ambassador to Kenya, recalls: "British civil servants who had stayed on in the Kenya Government often opposed American initiatives in reforming bureaucratic procedures and adapting the rigidly traditional school curriculum to contemporary African needs; for example, our .vocational agricultural courses were introduced into certain high schools over the strenuous objections of expatriate principals and educational advisers.”^^13^^ As Attwood also informs us, it was no easy task to settle the disputes that arose. Needless to say, the bone of contention was not really the teaching methods and the "bureaucratic procedures”. The British were not upset by the syllabuses and teaching methods, but by the political consequences of the USA’s intrusion into a sphere controlled by Britain.

p For the ruling circles of the USA the "Peace Corps" serves as an important instrument for seizing control of the training of national personnel. Education is the main sphere of its activities: about 80 per cent of its volunteers "sow the seeds of learning”.

p The creation of the "Peace Corps" is directly linked with the transformation in US foreign policy towards the developing countries that resulted from the substantial changes in the general international situation. Faced by the growing power of the world socialist system and by its increasing influence in the developing countries, the United States had to find new and more subtle methods for imposing her political rule over them. The "Peace Corps" was supposed to become a sort of symbol of the USA’s relations with the liberated countries: in contrast to the former metropolises, they were founded on “anti-colonialism”, on the “selfless” wish to assist development and on “indifference” to the countries’ internal political processes. The "Peace Corps‘s” basic ideological platform is anti-communism. Its organisers 255 make no secret of the fact. But the tide of history is such that, although the political and ideological expansion of the "Peace Corps" is directed against socialist ideas and the national liberation movement, the allies of American imperialism also fall victim to it. Examination of the Corps’s practical activities shows that they are intended, particularly in education, to bind the developing countries with numerous strands to the political and economic system of the USA and to convince the peoples of these countries of the “advantages” of the American way of life. In schools, colleges and universities teachers from the Corps are gradually preparing a pro-American stratum from among their pupils. In ministries and government departments "Peace Corps" consultants sing the praises of the American system of private enterprise and give advice that is in the interests of the USA. In agricultural training centres Africans are taught how to run a farm by American methods, how to manage American agricultural machinery and how to use American chemical products; construction engineers are acquainted with American machinery, equipment and technology; future doctors are instructed in American dispensing methods and American medicines.

p Of course, due note is taken of all this by the USA’s imperialist competitors. In those countries of French-speaking Africa where she has the power to do so, France, for example, makes every effort to obstruct the activities of the "Peace Corps”, even to the point of contriving to have the volunteers expelled.

p Even in the USA it is grudgingly admitted that the "Peace Corps" activities have primarily political objectives. A survey conducted among the volunteers in 1968 showed that 30 per cent of those interviewed replied affirmatively to the question: "Do you consider that the Peace Corps is more concerned with advertising the USA than with offering real help to the developing countries?”^^14^^ This view was indirectly corroborated by the former Director of the Corps, J. Hood Vaughn, who stated at New York’s Columbia University that the "Peace Corps" was an instrument of US foreign policy,^^15^^ and also by Secretary of State William Rogers, no less, in a speech made during his visit to the Corps’s headquarters in January 1969.

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p In the initial period after the attainment of independence by the African countries the resistance offered by the former metropolises to the USA’s intrusion into the sphere of train-’ ing national personnel was of a passive type and consisted mainly in taking steps to outdo the Americans in some enterprise. However, as the expansion of their competitor gathered momentum, Britain and, particularly, France began to put up direct resistance.

p In West Africa the attitude of French representatives to their American colleagues took on an openly hostile air. The French press also sounded the alarm when it complained that the government had “overlooked” the stepping up of US activity. Paris was particularly displeased over the extension of the "Peace Corps‘s” activities to the Frenchspeaking countries of Africa: in 1967-68 the Americans had managed to sign agreements providing for the despatch of volunteers to Chad, Upper Volta and Dahomey and increased their numbers in Gabon and Niger. The "different position" that France took up as a result was greeted in Washington with unconcealed irritation. When the whole group of "Peace Corps" volunteers was expelled from Gabon in January 1968, the Washington Post of the 14 February 1968 reported that Washington’s official circles suspected that the French President had made yet another anti- American move. In March 1968 the threat of expulsion also hung over the volunteers in Niger. Only a trip to Niger made by the "Peace Corps‘s” Director, J. Hood Vaughn, caused Hamani Diori’s decision to be set aside. France’s actions, however, did produce some results. In February 1968 the USA was obliged to declare officially that the "Peace Corps‘s” efforts to spread the use of English would be discontinued in all the French-speaking countries of Africa.

p The imperialist powers’ struggle over the training of African personnel will continue until the liberated countries themselves take full control of this social issue, which is vital to their further development. This is not to say that the young states must tackle the problem without outside help. Such an approach is unrealistic, and there is neither the basis nor the conditions for action of this type in Africa. But the question of personnel is a class issue. Either the liberated countries will, through appropriate legislation and other 257 measures, ensure the formation of new social forces, capable of accelerating their national, anti-imperialist development, or imperialism will create a social group which will not only make it easier to cement these countries within the system of the world capitalist economy but will also tie them either to the former metropolises or to their imperialist competitors.

Nor should it be forgotten that the growing help given to Africa by the Soviet Union and other socialist states to promote economic and cultural construction, the most important part of which is the training of African personnel, is compelling the imperialist powers to step up their activities in this field and is deepening the inter-imperialist struggle for the narrowing zones of influence. At the same time, however, the contribution of the socialist community to the cause of the African countries’ complete social emancipation is making their struggle for genuine national progress vastly easier.