In Africa, Western education has been used as a tool for keeping wealth and power in the hands of the educated elite. This book highlights the various processes by which the poor in Africa have been marginalized and disenfranchised, and explains why African economic development is very slow.

Education has always had a very special role in the social and political history of Tanzania. After independence President Nyerere and his government set out to educate the mass of the population through the intensive programme of 'Education for Self-Reliance'. It was a key example of the efforts to use education as a weapon of social engineering. This book puts that programme in the context of the history of education during the British Mandate from 1919 until independence in 1961. There were some aspects of continuity before and after independence. Lene Buchert's analysis focuses on the discrepancies between formulated and implemented policies. She has examined the performance of the national educational system and selected educational institutions and programmes. Another important aspect comes from the investigation of the interaction between in-school educational and out-of-school non-educational factors. The book provides valuable material for interdisciplinary social science courses, innovative courses on historical methodology or general courses in African history or comparative education.

Public education can be one of the most powerful tools at the disposal of a government wanting to maintain power, as it is the realm in which children are taught the social values and norms that will sustain the culture when they become adults. In South Africa, education was kept separate, unequal, and decidedly undemocratic, and as Hlatshwayo explains, it was used specifically to preserve and perpetuate inequality. In a work designed for historians and education professionals alike, he examines the tumultuous and highly politicized history of South African education and evaluates the prospects for its hopefully nonracialized future.