Official Policy Towards the Education of Children of Indian

Immigrants and Settlers in Jamaica, 1879-1950

Just over 38,000 Asians from the Indian sub-continent migrated to Jamaica between 1845 and 1916 to supplement the African-Jamaican labor force in an effort to save the declining plantation economy. The number of Indians imported to Jamaica was quite small in national, regional, and global perspective, representing just 7 percent of total Caribbean importations. Although comprising a tiny minority of the Jamaican population, however, issues relating to the Indian community attracted national attention (out of proportion with their numbers), and pre-occupied the Government for a century after their importation, generating copious correspondence between the Governor, the Colonial Secretary and the various Protectors of Immigrants. Bridget Brereton's view that Indian immigration to Jamaica was " of no great importance ... to Jamaica's evolution since emancipation", (1) therefore, represents a misreading of the Jamaican material. The debate over the issue of education for Indian children is just one example of the way in which matters concerning a tiny ethnic minority attracted government attention and affected race relations in post-slavery Jamaica. This article examines official policies towards the education of the children of these immigrants, the response of Indian parents, Indian Communal Associations, and church groups, towards these policies, and the impact of the policies on school attendance.

Lack of Concern in the Pre-1879 Period

Prior to 1879, neither the Government of Jamaica, the several Christian religious denominations, nor the larger Jamaican society evinced much concern for the education of migrant children. Three reasons accounted for this neglect. One, the numbers of Indian children was quite small. Between 1875 and 1916, Indian children made up no more than 9.4 percent of the total Indian population in the island (2). Two, Indians were regarded as transients who would shortly return to their homeland; and three, both parents and employers showed more interest in the labor power of children than in their educational needs and showed little enthusiasm for sending them to school. As far as the planters were concerned, children provided a source of exploitable labor, being paid less than adult men and women; to the parents, the additional wages, no matter how small, was welcomed. Missionaries were more concerned about their mission to the newly emancipated than the plight of people they regarded as ‘pagans’, from whom the African-Caribbean people had to be ‘protected’ (3).

Increasing Concern in the Post-1879 Period

The increased settlement of ex-indentured immigrants in Jamaica from 1879 caused education officials and the Protectors of Immigrants to pay more attention to the educational needs of Indian children. The first initiative towards making provision for the education of Indian children was taken by the Government of Jamaica. In 1879, the Government included in the newly-formulated Immigration Law a clause making provision for the Protector of Immigrants to "order the child of any immigrant, with the consent of such immigrant, to attend the nearest suitable and most convenient day school" (4). The Government hoped that this law would result in an increase in the numbers of children attending school, but this did not immediately happen. No degree of compulsion was attached to the law, heavy reliance being placed on the consent of parents; and from the Annual reports of the Inspector of Immigrants it would seem that Indian parents were not keen to send their children to school. Mr Ripoll, the Inspector of Immigrants for the parish of St Catherine, reported in 1879/80 that despite the provisions of the 1879 law, "I am sorry to have to report that the coolies do not evince any desire to avail themselves of the advantages that are at present open to them to send their children to the elementary schools" (5). Ripoll believed that it was the economic importance of children's labor which was the major factor explaining the parents' attitude, adding that, "there is a decided disinclination on the part of the parents to allow any of their children who are able to do any work to attend school" (6). Even though Indian children were legally only allowed to be indentured at age 16, parents allowed them to be employed in the convalescent or weeding gang below that age (7). In such gangs, they earned wages of 3-4 pence per day or per task if they were aged 6-9, and 5-6 pence if they were 9-12 years old (8).

The general laws of the country did little to prevent child labor, which was by no means a practice confined to migrants. It was not until 1933 that a Bill was introduced into the Jamaican Legislative Council to prohibit the employment of children under the age of 12 [later increased to 14]; and even this law did not apply to agricultural employment, being specific to the employment of children in and around sugar factories where they could be harmed by dangerous machinery. Some members of the Legislative Council opposed the bill as it stood. The elected member for St Elizabeth parish, Peter Sangster, argued that considerable hardships would be created for sugar planters if children were no longer to be allowed to do light work on the sugar factory compound. He was of the view that work was a means of controlling children. When it was suggested to him that sending children to school would have the same effect, Sangster replied that school was not the only place where people learnt to do things (9).

The continuing reluctance of the parents of Indian children to send them to school and the resultant small numbers of Indian children who were registered in the existing elementary schools was an issue for comment by Surgeon Major Comins who visited Jamaica in 1891 to investigate the conditions of the Indians. Comins' tour of Jamaica revealed that out of a total school age population of 2,095 Indian children, comprising 1,032 boys and 1,063 girls, only 128 boys and 110 girls were actually attending school, with 89 percent being outside of the school system (10). He was particularly critical of the low school attendance by children living on the sugar estates. Of a total of 47 children residing on the estates of Black Heath, Catherine Hall, Fontabelle and George's Plain in the western parish of Westmoreland, only two [from George's Plain] were attending school (11). Among African-Jamaica children, 83,731 out of a total school age population of 164,500 were registered in the 817 government and grant-aided elementary schools inspected in the fiscal year 1891-2. The Education Department revealed, however, that absenteeism was high, the average daily school attendance being 45,927 or 55 percent of the number enrolled (12).

On further investigation it was revealed that Indian children were discouraged from going to school because they were harassed by other children. In addition, though, parents believed that mixing with children of non-Indian background would threaten religious purity, particularly among Hindus. A 1909 report from the Protector of Immigrants indicated that: "East Indians will not allow their children to attend the native schools owing to the deep-rooted prejudice which they entertain against Negroes, and their objection to any intercourse with them. They use the word "kafari" [kaffir?] meaning "infidel", to describe Negroes" (13). Hindus of the higher castes reportedly objected to their children mixing with other castes, believing that close association with those outside their caste would have an injurious effect on their religion and would represent and infraction of the 'dharma' [Laws and Duties].

Indians were reportedly also opposed to the content of the curriculum and the language of instruction in the schools. They would have preferred to have their children taught in their own languages by Indian teachers. The majority of the schools in the post-slavery Caribbean were Christian denominational and education, as a means of social control, consisted primarily of Christian religious instruction. The general view among the Indians, as articulated by Parashu Ram Sharma on his visit to the Caribbean in 1939 on behalf of the Foreign and Propaganda Department of the Sri Sanatan Dharma, was that western style education was a vehicle of de-indianization; that it "robbed the Indians of the good traits of their culture and infused in them various vices of the West..." (14)

In the 1890s, the continued non-attendance of Indian children in the elementary schools became the concern of various groups and individuals in the Jamaican society who increasingly thought that special provisions should be made for them because of their great resistance to schooling in the existing schools. It was generally thought that if more active steps were not taken to educate Indian children, they would continue to grow up as illiterates. Furthermore, as education was perceived by the colonial ruling class as a means of socialising Indian children into western cultural traditions, this process would be retarded should they continue to remain outside the school system. As Judith Weller observed, the colonial authorities saw clearly that "once an Indian learned English he adjusted more readily to his environment" and could more easily be integrated into the large society (15).

Not surprisingly, though somewhat belatedly, it was the missionaries who responded most vigorously to the calls to make special provisions to meet the educational needs of Indian children after the 1890s. Missionary bodies had traditionally dominated the efforts to provide popular education in Jamaica, but although Indians had been arriving in the island since 1845, for a considerable period, missionaries paid little attention to the educational needs of Indian children. Comins observed in 1891 that: "no missionary work is attempted amongst the immigrants. A section of the clergy, especially among the Baptists, have done all in their power to prevent the introduction of East Indians and have not established any missions or schools for their benefit" (16).

Once the Indians began to settle in larger numbers, however, their feared negative effects on African-Jamaicans caused missionary zeal to be directed at them. As part of their work of religious conversion directed mainly at the adult Indian population, the Quakers and the Presbyterians held day schools for Indian children in their mission stations. At Seaside in 1898, the Quakers opened a school for Indian girls called Happy Grove and other schools were opened at Trinity [Quaker Hill], Amity Hall, Albany, Orange Bay, Spicy Grove and Cascade, though not all of these were specifically for Indian children (17).

The churches also tried to get the planters to change their attitude towards the education of the children of Indian agricultural laborers. The majority of the planters tended to think that it was unnecessary to provide any form of education, even basic literacy, for East Indian children. When 'educated' laborers were needed, these could be obtained from among the African-Jamaican population. However, in the period 1891-1949, planters became more supportive of the attempts being made to educate Indian children. In response to the appeals of the church groups, some planters made estate buildings available to be used as school rooms. One of the earliest, and at that stage exceptional, cases of planter support was noted by Surgeon Major Comins in 1891. This was the school operated by the Presbyterians on Ewing's Caymanas in St Catherine. The proprietor of this estate contributed £10 per annum towards the maintenance of the school and also paid the Minister £85 per year, plus fringe benefits of a rent free house and garden, to administer it.

The Quakers, Presbyterians and Anglicans also established Industrial Schools, Homes and Orphanages to cater to Indian children. Industrial schools played a major role in the education of Indian children between 1879 and 1910. After 1880, the Protector of Immigrants was able to take action under Section 35 of the Jamaica Law 23 of 1879 which provided that the "Protector of Immigrants may order the child of any immigrant or any immigrant's child being an orphan or abandoned by his parents, to be sent to any certified Industrial School to be fed, taught, employed, maintained and taken care of" (18). Some Orphanages and Homes for Indian children were built in the 20th century. Most were opened after the influenza epidemic of 1918 which orphaned many children. In Portland alone, for example, 13 children were left orphaned in 1918. Orphanages and Homes catering specifically to Indian children up to the 1930s were Restview in Westmoreland, Lyndale Girls' Home and the Swift Home in St Mary, operated by the Quakers; and the Constant Spring East Indian Orphanage [later called Wortley Home], operated by Canon and Mrs Wortley. Orphanages and Homes offered basic primary education to the children, some of whom also attended the nearby elementary schools. Those established exclusively for girls were aimed at preparing them to be housewives and mothers. This view was articulated by Sada Stanley, Superintendent of Lyndale in 1924. According to her "the women of any land may be a great determining factor in the uplift of the land..., and no people can be truly great without true and good mothers.... Faith in God and obedience to His will are the foundations without which education and training can be of no lasting value" (19). As may be expected, therefore, the Homes and Orphanages heavily emphasized religious education and domestic science.

The Call For Exclusive Indian Schools

As a solution to the problem of the low registration of Indian children in the exisiting schools and the Indians' objection to inter-ethnic mixing, there was a call for for the establishment of special, ethnically segregated schools exclusively for Indian children. The earliest proposal came from the Inspector of Immigrants for St Catherine in 1880 and from the Education Commission of 1897. The Inspector called on the Government to establish special schools for Indian children on strictly non-sectarian principles, as "it is a matter of pain to me... to see no active steps yet taken to educate the children of a class of persons who are doing so much by their steady labour for the capitalists of the country" (20). The Education Commission appointed in 1897 to enquire into the state of education in Jamaica also recommended that special government elementary schools for Indian children be opened in areas where 30 or more of these children resided (21). Indian parents also lobbied the Government for the establishment of segregated schools. Institutions and organizations, after all, can provide means of expressing group identity, or at least, of advancing group identity. The call for separate schools for Indian children was linked to this need. As it turned out, the curriculum in those schools did not advance Indian culture, run as they were by Euro-Christian missionaries bent on converting the Hindus and Muslims to Christianity.

Initially, there was very little support from the government for the establishment of ethnically segregated schools. The Government's policy was that all children in Jamaica, regardless of ethnic origin, should attend the same schools. As Lord Chamberlain, Secretary of State, wrote to the Governor of Jamaica in 1899 in response to this issue, "the aim of education should be to assimilate the different elements of the population, not to accentuate racial distinctions" (22). Chamberlain's view was later reiterated in 1930 by the Acting Director of Education, Tucker, who stressed that, "there is no distinction made in elementary education ... for the separation of East Indians or Chinese children from the remainder, the desire being that if these children remain in Jamaica, they should become its citizens" (23).

The authorities also took the view that it did not make good economic sense to provide special educational institutions for so few children. However, in light of the continued failure of the majority of Indian children to attend the existing elementary schools, and following the repeated representations made, the Government decided in 1910 to accede to the pressure for special Indian schools. Reports had come in from Portland, for example, that when the Quaker-founded Indian school at Orange Bay was opened in 1899, the attendance of Indian children had been relatively high. In 1907, the Government took over the school and put an African-Jamaican teacher in charge and began to admit non-Indian children. Practically all the 30-40 Indian children immediately were withdrawn by their parents. By 1909, there were only about 2-3 Indian children still attending that school. The Protector of Immigrants, Charles Doorly, in the face of this evidence of Indian response to ethnic mixing in the schools, recommended a reversal of the Government's position, on the basis that, "prejudices so deep-seated and which are the result of so many centuries of caste distinction deserve to be treated in a sympathetic spirit" (24). He recommended the establishment of two special Indian schools at Orange Hill in St Mary and Fellowship in Portland, both areas with large populations of Indians. The Quakers had already indicated their willingness to work in those areas for the education of the Indian children (25). It was made clear that these two schools would be experimental, and based on an assessment after two years, the Government would make a decision whether to open more schools or abandon the experiment. The Legislative Council, therefore, voted money for the purpose of funding the two experimental special Indian schools recommended by Doorly, plus an additional one at Smith Village in (Denham Town) in Kingston where by 1915 the number of Indian children on roll was 58 with an average daily attendance of 43 (26). The schoolroom at Fellowship in Portland was provided rent-free to the Immigration Department by the United Fruit Company which operated banana estates int he parish on which hundreds of Indians worked as indentured and free laborers. While the schools in St Mary and Portland were run by the Quakers, the one in Kingston was operated by the Scottish Presbyterians.

Other special Indian schools were established following the visit of Messrs Chimman Lal and James McNeil in 1913. They had reported that although the success of the three experimental schools in raising Indian school attendance levels was not as great as had been expected, there should be an extension of these schools to other areas with sizable numbers of Indians. They also recommended the inclusion of Hindustani on the curriculum of the schools. They recommended, in addition, that a Government Morning School be established with an Indian teacher "so that the elder boys might work in the afternoons" (27). This would offer a compromise to parents and planters who resisted school attendance on the part of working age children.

The Acting Protector of Immigrants, Duff, endorsed these suggestions, particularly with respect of the appointment of Indian teachers and the inclusion of Hindustani on the school's curriculum which would perhaps induce more parents to send their children to school. Duff also seemed to have believed that if existing government schools did the same with respect of the teachers and the curriculum, then, "the necessity of establishing special Indian schools for East Indian children, or in the alternative, allowing them to grow up in ignorance" (28), would be avoided. He argued that while special Indian schools might be alright for the recently arrived immigrants, those who had been in the island a long time should be enjoined to attend the regular school (29). Acting upon these suggestions, a Government Morning school was established in Alley in Vere in 1916 under and Indian teacher. This location had been decided upon because of the poor school attendance of the children living in that area. Out of a school age population of 153 Indian girls and 112 boys, only 3 girls and 12 boys were attending school in that area in the years 1915 and 1916 (30).

Two other special Indian schools were opened in 1916 - at Trinity in St Mary and at Constant Spring in St Andrew. The school at Trinity, which had an enrollment of about 20, was run by a Mrs. Schoda Williams, the wife of a Quaker Indian catechist. The students were required to pay a tuition fee, and this limited attendance. The school at Constant Spring was established by the Anglican minister, Canon Wortley, to meet the educational needs of post-migrant Indians who were increasingly migrating to the urban area. It was attached to the Wortley Home which still very much catered to orphaned and abandoned Indian children. In 1916, the school had 62 children on roll and the average daily attendance was 28. This school joined the Smith Village School in educating urban Indian children.

Continuing Church Efforts

Throughout the first quarter of the 20th century, the churches continued to identify areas of need and to press plantation owners to provide buildings to serve as school rooms for Indian children. They also continued their own efforts to educate Indian children. In 1920, educational work among the Indians was extended, by the Church of England, to Golden Grove, Annotto Bay, Vere and Spanish Town, and by the Quakers to Highgate in St Mary (31).

Despite these efforts, up to 1934, the majority of Indian children remained outside of the school system. Three factors explain this situation. In the first place, though some parents seemed much more prepared too send their children to the special Indian schools, particularly those with Indian teachers, there were not enough of these schools to cater to all Indian children of school sage. Second, in the majority of the special schools, the curriculum was dominated by Christian religious instruction, the language of instruction was English, and even though some of the teachers spoke Hindi, it was in an effort to help the children learn the English language; Hindi was not taught. These factors were thought by Indian parents to be prejudicial to their children's cultural development. Third, up to the 1920s, the Indians' resistance to cultural integration remained strong. As a result of all these factors, the percentage of Indian children enrolled in the various schools in 1924 was just 37 percent. (See Table 1)

TABLE 1

INDIAN CHILDREN REGISTERED IN GOVERNMENT &
DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS, SELECTED YEARS, 1891-1945*

* Selection based on years for which both attendance and non-attendance figures are available.

Sources: Surgeon Major Comins' Report, 1891; Annual Reports of the Protector of Immigrants, 1914-1945.

After 1934, however, there was a steady increase in the school attendance of Indian children, with slight fluctuations during the war years. Three factors explain this increase. The year 1928 marked the end of the Jamaican Government's legal obligation to provide free or assisted return passages for time-expired Indians. With the departure of the SS Sutlej in 1929, repatriation came to an end (32). The removal of India as the eventual settling point had a positive effect on education; more and more parents viewed Jamaica as home and increasingly sent their children to school. The number of Indian children enrolled in school increased from 1,234 in 1924 to 1,479 in 1929 and 1,584 in 1930. By 1938, 2,467 were attending school (33). Attendance decreased in the 1940s, perhaps due to the increasing economic hardships experienced by parents due to the effects of the Second World War, but had gone up again by 1945.

In addition, coincidental with the end of the legal obligation of the Jamaican government to repatriate time-expired Indians was the withdrawal of the Government of the permission to operate Special Indian Schools. They voted no more funds, forcing some to close. Others shifted their focus and admitted non-Indian children as well. Special Indian schools could continue to operate if they had private source of funding. The closure of Special Indian schools resulted in the withdrawal of some Indian children from schools; but nevertheless the percentage registered in the island's schools increased overall after 1930.

TABLE 2

PARISH BREAKDOWN FOR 1943-44

The Response of the Indian Community

The Indian community protested the Government's closure of the special Indian schools. The various Indian Communal Associations which gave evidence before J.D. Tyson who represented the Indian interest as a special member of the Moyne Commission which gathered evidence on the causes of the 1938 labor rebellions in Jamaica, protested that the closure of the schools, particularly the one in Smith Village, had resulted in a decrease in school attendance. The Associations also said that although the Education Commission had recommended compulsory education since 1882, this order had not ben implemented and that in 1938, fully 75 percent of Indian children residing in Kingston and Lower St Andrew not being in school (34). The East Indian National Union further expressed to Tyson the wish for the re-opening of the special Indian schools. Tyson did not overtly support the call of the EINU but called for the training of Indian teachers to be placed in schools located in areas with large numbers of Indians to encourage parents to send their children to school; not one such teacher existed in 1939 (35).

Despite the pressures, the Government did not overturn its decision. It was sensitive to the heightened ethnic economic competition in the war years and to the hostility of African-Jamaicans to the special treatment of minority groups. It wanted to diffuse racial tensions, also directed against the Chinese. The Moyne Commission had supported the Governments' position, pointing out that in 1939, fully 90 percent of the Indians were born in Jamaica. It warned that "...any measures which cause the East Indians to look upon themselves or to be looked upon, as a people apart, will at once pave the way for inter-racial rivalries and jealousies, and at the same time prejudice the handling of the many problems involving all the peoples of the West Indies" (36). The Government of Jamaica stressed in 1941, in response to continued calls from the Indian Associations to re-open the schools that the Indians "must learn to became a part of the population" (37). The editor of The Indian had claimed in 1940 that it was the lack of education which accounted for the poor economic status of the majority of Indians in the island. He claimed that "even though East Indians have been in this colony for close to 100 years, they are almost as backward today as they were at the commencement. This state of lethargy obtains mainly from ignorance amongst the Indians, of the value of education" (38). In support of this, the 1943 population census revealed that close to 50 percent of the total Indian population was illiterate. By contrast only 48 out of 857 Syrians (6 percent), and 1,286 out of 9,234 Chinese (14 percent) were unable to read and write (though perhaps only in English). The Census claimed that 28 percent of the African-Jamaican population was illiterate.

Clearly, only the Indian community could remedy this situation - by sending their children to the government schools or financing their own schools. Initially, the view was that the community would try the latter. For example, the Varma Hall Infant school in 1945; but this was closed in 1947 as a result of a decline in attendance attributable to the dispersal of Indians to other areas of Kingston and St Andrew. In the end, the majority of Indians seemed to have decided by 1945 to send their children to existing schools, resulting in an increase in enrollment in that year (See Table 1).

ENDNOTES