Bøger af M.K. Bacchus

How critical is education in the development struggle of a third world country? Responding to popular demands for more accessible education, the Guyanese government instituted numerous educational reforms, hoping to promote economic growth in both the modern and the traditional sectors of the economy. Many in the traditional sector, however, saw education as a means of economic advancement, and sought increasingly to move into higher social strata through employment in the modern sector. Consequently, the civil service and private firms gained an oversupply of personnel, while agriculture and small business suffered, and unemployment increased. The author examines Guyana's educational system from historical, political, social, and economic perspectives, and draws implications for other developing countries.

This comprehensive study of the development of education in the West Indies between 1492 and 1854 examines the shifts which occurred within the nature of the education programs provided for the masses. Believing existing theories of educational change are too limiting, Bacchus has blended detailed analysis of such important factors as the changing role of the state, the conflicting educational objectives among the "dominant" groups, and their differences with the missionary societies providing popular education to better understand how these changes came about. He attributes greater importance to the role of the masses, who increasingly asserted their views about the type of education they wanted for their children. The book demonstrates how instructional programs developed in the West Indies not as the result of a rational curriculum development process but, rather, through a series of compromises made to accommodate the views of various influential groups. Education and curriculum evolved by way of a show, yet constant, changing dialectical process. Such an insightful work will arouse the interest of scholars and students of educational development, particularly those studying the West Indies.