Learning before the colonial school

Education in the Gombe area is much older than the colonial school. Before Western schooling arrived, children learned at home and in the community. Parents, elders and relatives passed on traditions, values and skills without a timetable or a classroom. Teaching happened on the farm, on hunting trips, at play and during ceremonies, and children learned by watching and by being told.

After the jihad of 1804 and the founding of Gombe Emirate, Qur'anic education became a central part of life. Seeking Islamic knowledge was treated as a core principle of the emirates, and the paper this entry draws on recalls the slogan attributed to Uthman dan Fodio: Deme, Dure, Jange, meaning farming, animal husbandry and education. Gombe's position between two great centres of learning, Borno and Kano, helped it as a place for Islamic study.

Under Emir Haruna, who ruled from 1922 to 1935, Islamic education grew further. He asked visiting Qur'anic teachers (malams) to settle in Gombe and called on wealthy people to support the teachers and their students. More than eleven Almajiri-style schools were set up in the emirate during his reign. Their graduates became some of the first staff of the colonial administration, especially native court judges and their scribes. At that time the emirate was very large and covered the areas of eight of today's local government areas in Gombe State.

Why the British wanted schools

The colonial school system in Northern Nigeria came out of a disagreement between two men. Frederick Lugard, the first High Commissioner of the Northern Protectorate, wanted secular education. Dr W. R. S. Miller of the Church Missionary Society wanted schools that would lead people to Christianity. Lugard restricted missionary work in Muslim areas of the North. The paper says Miller's attempt to bring Western education to Yola in 1902 failed because people resisted it, and that a second attempt in Kano in 1906 failed too. People were suspicious because they linked these schools with Christianity.

Lugard then persuaded the British government to replace Miller with Hans Visher, who shared his thinking on education. Visher became Director of Education for the Northern Protectorate in 1909. The paper says he had visited Egypt and Sudan and studied how education worked in those Muslim societies. He took a more secular approach than Lugard and adopted a policy of not interfering in religious matters. The British made it known that schools were not meant to undermine local religion or social order. Their stated purpose was to produce a workforce for the colonial administration.

The first government elementary school was opened at Nasarawa in Kano in 1909, for the sons of emirs and other title holders. From 1900 to 1919, when Lugard ended his time as governor, only four elementary schools existed in the whole of Northern Nigeria, and no clear curriculum for the North was designed until 1925.

These elementary schools were also called village schools. They were day schools, and in the lower classes lessons were taught in the local language, which in the north meant Hausa. The aim was to improve trades and crafts such as farming, carpentry and blacksmithing, along with basic hygiene, so that living standards would rise. The curriculum also included English, writing, arithmetic and religious instruction.

First contacts with Western schooling in Gombe

Some people from Gombe met Western education before any school opened in the emirate. During the reign of Emir Umaru, who ruled from 1898 to 1922, the British Divisional Officer for Gombe, T. F. Carlyle, advised that young men should be sent to Kano to be educated. The Emir agreed. In 1910 he chose four people, all from royal families, to go: Yerima Jibril, Maina Maigari Hassan, Malam Baba Madaki and Malam Ahmadu.

By 1912 informal adult classes had been opened at Nafada, under Malam Jibril Abuja, whom the Emir had persuaded to come to Gombe and teach adults. An adult class was opened in 1913, when the emirate and British administrative headquarters moved to the town. The first students were taught simple arithmetic, writing and Hausa.

The classes got a boost in 1919. The British and emirate headquarters moved to a more central place, Gombe Doma, and the graduates of the Kano school returned. Two of them were employed to teach, and they taught the second group of adult students.

The first elementary school

By 1925 the first elementary school in Gombe Emirate had been established at Gombe Doma, with 20 pupils. The main subjects were agriculture, hygiene, writing, reading and arithmetic.

In 1930 E. R. J. Hussey took over from Hans Visher as Director of Education and changed the approach. He introduced new, practical subjects: weaving, mat-making, bee-keeping, blacksmithing and rope-making. The paper describes these as aimed at building skills people could use to earn a living.

How schools spread, 1940 to 1954

Growth was slow at first and then quickened:

1940: five new elementary schools opened at Bajoga, Deba, Dukku, Kumo and Tudun-wada (in the capital, Gombe Doma), to meet high demand for Western education.
1943: two more opened, at Gwani and Hinna.
1944: two more opened, at Bojude and Nafada. This brought the emirate to a total of ten elementary schools.
1952: the colonial government created a senior elementary school at Gombe Doma, on the site of today's Government Science Senior Secondary School, Gombe, with 19 students. The paper says it remained the only institution of its kind in the emirate until independence in 1960 and through the first decade afterwards.
1954: the paper calls this the turning point of the colonial period. Fifteen elementary schools were opened, including Jekadafari, Dadinkowa, Akko Central, Pindiga, Doho, Daban Fulani, Dukul, Tongo, Malam Sidi, Kwadom, Garko and Kalshingi, with others such as Bolari, Herwagana, Karangada and Bubayero. They were opened to take in the large number of school-age pupils and the many teachers who had been trained at teacher training institutions in the province.
1974: after independence, more primary schools were established in the area.

Who benefited and who did not

The paper's central finding is that the colonial education system, which was built to supply the government with staff, produced results beyond what the colonial government had in mind. It created an educated class and a supply of local teachers and administrators who stayed on after independence.

It also names problems. The education was described as bookish, with too little practical and vocational training, and the authors argue that practical skills and entrepreneurship need more emphasis today.

The benefits were also uneven. Some areas gained early from colonial schooling and others did not. The northern parts of the old emirate, in areas now within Kwami, Nafada, Dukku and Funakaye local government areas, did not fully benefit from education policies in either the colonial or the later period. Even where schools were built, growth was slow and gradual, and these areas came to be regarded as educationally backward. Some communities responded by setting up community schools for their own children. The paper says these areas are still poorly represented in the state's tertiary institutions and in other sectors of the economy.

What this entry does not cover

This entry covers Gombe Emirate, the area ruled from Gombe town. It does not cover mission schools or schooling among other peoples of present-day Gombe State, such as those in the south, whose histories need their own sources and may differ. It also covers only the period up to 1960 and a few later points.