CHAPTER ONE
Phe Establishment of
Formal Education
It is now practically two hundred years since the first small
elementary school was set up in the Settlement of Belize in the Bay
of Honduras.
This was really a signiticant event, a small school
sponsored by the governing authority of the small British outpost
while slavery was still prevalent. It was not normal during the time
of slavery in the British West Indies for the Government of a
colonial territory to initiate formal education although nonconformist religious groups were active in promoting religious
indoctrination among the slave population. Yet it happened in
Belize, thereby establishing a foundation on which the church-state
system of formal education has been established.
The first recorded measure to set up a school in Belize, occurred
when the Public Meeting in 1807, voted to provide a school for ten
poor children. No further mention is made of the school until a
church clerk and schoolmaster arrived in Belize from England at the
beginning of the Anglican Chaplaincy of John Armstrong in 1812.
In 1816, "under the supervision of Chaplain Armstrong and the
Board of Governors consisting of the Superintendent of the
Settlement and the Magistrates, the Honduras Free School was
opened. Johnson, 1985)." The setting up of the Honduras Free
School was the bepginning of state intervention in schooling in the
Belize Settlement.
Initially, education was to be provided for twelve children born
of free parents to be selected
by the Magistrates. We do not have
the details of the debates that must have
taken place at the Public
Meetings and among the Magistrates leading up to the
opening o
the Honduras Free School.
Nevertheless, we do know that the last
attempt by the Spaniards to dislodge the settlers from the Bay of
Honduras had taken place in
1798.
September
Up to that time
there
good deal of uncertainty and instability in the life of the small
Settlement. However, by the first decade of the nineteenth century
was
a
- 10
there was a greater sense of security among the settlers and a
readiness to establish a stronger social foundation in their
community. Besides, despite the disruptions brought about by
Spanish threat in the past, trade in logwood and mahogany had
never completely stopped. In fact by 1800 it was bringing in profits
and creating wealth among the merchant class of the small
settlement.
A Baptist minister writing about the conditions in
Belize as they were in 1822 states:
Considering its size and population the degree of activity and bustle was
remarkable.
On the wharfs, covered with logs of mabogany, numbers of
labourers conld be seen all day beating of or squaring the ogs witb long and
broad axtS. Much business was also done in various sbops and stores wbilst the
harbourwas aluays a seene of busy activity (Clegborn, 1939).
Prominent among the inhabitants of the settlement were the
members of the Anglican community. The Church of England had
become established during the last two decades of the eighteenth
century. The white inhabitants, being British, would have been
largely Anglican, although there may have been some dissenters in
the settlement.
However, for a number of years there was no
church building until 1812 when the historic St. John the Baptist
Cathedral was constructed. By then the Anglican community had
increased in number, added through baptism, not only of white
infants, but also of coloureds, free blacks and slaves. An early
census of 1816 puts the total population of the settlement at 3,824
(Richard Hadel S.J., BISRA No. 1 occasional publications 1974).
No further statistics on the distribution of the population is
provided. However, for the 1823 census Hadel provides a
distribution as follows:
Whites
Men
Women
Children
Coloureds
Blacks
Slaves
136
192
217
243
222
1,440
51
30
374
174
628
400
217
809
613
2,468
The combined total is 4,107.
11
It was inevitable, then, thata certain amount of tension would
emerge between the Anglicans and the nonconformist missionaries
in their efforts to Christianize and educate the
poor enslaved people
in the Settlement of Belize. In the matter of schooling it seems that
the efforts of the Baptists and Methodists brought about a
temporary reduction in the enrolment of children in the Honduras
Free School. For example, during the superintendency of Francis
Cockburn
(1830-1836),
a
zealous
Anglican,
he
expressed
dissatisfaction with the efforts of the dissenters and accused themn
of enticing pupils away from the Free School. Apparently, he
wanted to place restrictions on their efforts, but was advised against
such a course by the Colonial Office in England. Johnson, 1985).
Superintendent Cockburn's support of the Honduras Free
School gave it an edge over the Baptists and the Methodists. Its
enrolment fluctuated but remained above two hundred (200) during
the 1830's. That of its rivals also fluctuated but was compensated
for by the opening of additional places of worship and Sunday
school activities.
regarded the Anglicans
lf
the
dissenters
field of education, the Methodists were also
as
their rivals in the
perceived by the
Baptists as their opponents. Johnson (1985) refers to the rivalry
between the rwo dissenting missionary groups in the
complaint by the Baptist leadership.
following
"My school income bas decreased during the last balf year by the raising of
school in Belize in the Methodist interest. They have canvassed with
characleristic energy for which not ahuays observing the most Christian-ike
another
pirit towardus."Johnson, 1985)
Nevertheless, despite lack of complete harmony among the
Christian churches in the first half of the nineteenth century
elementary schooling expanded and extended outside the bounds
of Belize 1Town, especially because of the efforts of the
Baptists
and the Methodists. The Church of England, fully supported from
public funds, concentrated on the Honduras Free School, also
known as the Honduras Grammar Schoolin the 1840's.
- 15-
It is estimated that in 1840 there were some seven hundred
pupils enrolled in schools in the settlement. That was about 9%% of
the
total
population
which
must
have
been
close
to
8,000
inhabitants comprised of a minority of whites, a growing number
of coloured with the vast majority being black inhabitants.
Drawing on the total number of children recorded in the 1823
census which was 978 and calculating at a 2% increase of that
number of children over a seventeen year period a very rough
estimate of the population of children in 1840 would have been
almost 1300 consequently those not in schoolwould have been well
over 53%. Therefore, it is clear that a large portion of the mixed
population of Belize at the time lived out their lives as illiterates.
Even so, when compared with the level of illiteracy in many parts of
the world even today, the Belize Settlement was making some
progress with regard to the schooling of its people just after slavery
was finally brought to an end. However, it must be noted that the
curriculum of the schools was basic.
It included bible reading,
writing, spelling and arithmetic. The boys at the Honduras
Grammar School were also taught grammar and clocution and the
girls needlework. The change in the name from Honduras Free
School was probably an indication that there was an attempt to
move the curriculum to a higher academic level. However, there is
no certainty about this as some years atterwards there was a reversal
to the name Honduras Free School.
What we see in the rivalries among the missionaries in Belize for
pupils for their schools is the emergence of a dual system with the
Honduras Free School being fully financed by the government of
the Settlement and the schools of the dissenters being
supported by
slim resources from English missionary societies and by
voluntary
labour. Johnson states that initially £300 was allocated annually
from the public treasury supplemented by donations to run the
Honduras Free School. Subsequently, the operation of the school
became a regular charge on the annual budget of the Settlement.
The schoolmaster and the schoolmistress were provided with
regular salaries and with housing. In comparison, teachers in the
dissenting schools taught without the privilege of regular salaries,
working under the missionaries and their wives.
- 16
In the 1840's the
government
commenced
to
approve
the
allocation of public funds to be used for the support of schools
including those of the dissenting churches. Initially, the Baptists
refused such assistance because of their fear that the
government
would eventually assume control of their schools and interfere with
their sectarian religious train1ng
O
The Catholics
During the first half of the nineteenth century there were a few
Catholics in the Settlement but they had no church, no school, and
no priest until 1851. With the influx of Mexican refugees during
the Guerra de Castas (War of the Castes) in Yucatan, priests were
sent out from Jamaica to minister to them. The first was Reverend
George Avarro who arrived in Belize in 1853. (Buhler, 1976). The
Roman Catholic missionaries wasted no time organizing and
carrying out missionary activities in what are now Corozal and
OrangeWalk districts where the largest clusters of Mestizos and
Yucatec Maya Indians settled. Initialy, the Roman Catholic Church
was administered by the Jamaican Vicariate.
In 1888, however,
British Honduras became a separate vicariate when Father di Pietro
was ordained Vicar Apostolic of British Honduras. The Handbook
of British Honduras in its 1925 edition states:
The Vicariate had not only grown in number but in eficiency and
ecclesiastical formation. It bad gradualy evolredfrom a stiruggling dependent
church into a compact diocese. In forty (40) villages there were eleven (1 1)
schools under the management of the Catbolic antborities with a roll-call of over
one thousand (1,000) children.
Bishop di Pietro introduced the Sisters of
Mery as teachers of the Belize Catholc scbools.
So far the account relating to the emergence of a colonial
has
system of formal education in Belize
been inattentive to the
matter of what the society was like at the time. O. Nigel Bolland in
his STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM (Bolland 1997)
colonial
states
that as
society Belize was organized on the basis of slavery
a
around
a core of European derived economic, political, military, legal,
slaves but also free
religious institutions which excluded not only
people
of colour.
However, he goes
- 17
on
to state
that those
employment of
the males
the mahogany camps. Consequently,
because
mothers having to work at very strenuous tasks
during
and after slavery, it must have been difficult for them to give much
at
of
serious attention to the Christian education of their children, for
instance, and to their attending school.
The Church-State System of Educational Administration and
Control
The history of education in Belize during the last half of the
nineteenth century is essentially that of the establishment of the
legal and administrative foundations of the church-state system of
primary schooling in the colony.
We have seen that elementary schooling in Belize during the
first half of the nineteenth century was being conducted by
missionaries operating in an emergent church-state system.
Was
this model unique to Belize? Not at all. Whatwas happeningin the
Belize Settlement and in the British West Indies was closely inked
to what was happening in England at the time.
Up to the late nineteenth century Great Britain did not have a
regularly state-funded national system of education. In fact, up to
the nineteenth century the British Government maintained a policy
of non-intervention in education. The rich sent their children to
private schools or engaged special tutors to teach thetn at home.
For the poor labouring class, if they could afford to pay, there were
several types of private day schools and charity schools. For the
pupils of these schools, which became quite popular in the latter
part of the eighteenth century, there was the Sunday school which
attempted to provide instruction on the only day children who
laboured in the factories and mines were free. As H.C. Barnard
states:
The aims of Sunday schools were religious and social rather than
intellectual. The rules of the society (society for the establishment and support
of Sunday schooks in the different counties of England) include this
instruction.. Bediligent inteachingthe children to read well...neither writing
nor arithmeticis to be taught on Sunda"The specific objective was to enable the
19
Pupils to read the Bible or a religious manudl. Barnard states: *T bis explains
y so often in elementary popular education at this period (the late eighteenth
Century) the curriculum is confined to reigions instruction, reading and mannal
ork but no
otherform of intellectualinstruction."
(Barnard, 1963)
Sunday schools as well as other forms of elementary education
were operated
by
the
Established
Church
of
England
and
organizations connected with it. Non-conformist churches also
engaged themselves in educational activities.
The
period during which the Honduras Free School was being
organized was the time when steps were being taken in England to
improve the lot of poor children who were virtually enslaved in the
Engish cotton and woollen mills. For instance, in 1807 Samuel
Whitbread put forward the Parochial Schools Bill in the House of
Commons aiming at free elementary education for pauper children
of all kinds. Actions such as this may have had an influence on the
decision of the Public Meeting in Belize to open a school for poor
children. The fact that the Established Church of England was
ready at hand made it possible to put administration of the
Honduras Free School in the hands of that church. The Baptist and
Methodist churches entered the field in the 1820's and were, in the
1840's, allowed to receive financial help from the government to
carry on with their educational activities.
In 1834, when the Abolition Act came into force in the West
Indies, the Negro Education Fund was provided to assist
missionaries in opening and running schools for the ex-slaves.
Belize did not receive any of that fund, but the British policy of
putting education in the hands of the churches in the British West
Indies certainly contributed to the development of the church-state
system of education in Belize.
Laws enacted in the 1850's established the policy and
procedures
for schools
to operate within the church-state
partnership. These included the 1850 and 1855 Acts. The purpose
of the 1850 Schools Act is stated as follows:
20
To prondefor additional schools, for the benefit of every denomination of
Christians in the setlement of British Honduras and to make certan
regulations for the government of smcb scbools and tbe Honduras Gra.
School
An analysis of this act provides us with an insight into the
progress of education in Belize up to this point and specifically into
the efforts to regularize the administration of schools 1n the
Settlement. The supporting statenment which follows the statement
of purpose ot the Act provides the rationale for the Act. It states:
Whereas a numerous cass, consisting of narions denominations of
Christians, are excluded hby their conscientionsfeelings from the benejats of
the Hondunas Grammar School; and whereas it is extpedient to extemd to al
classes of Her Majest's subjecks without any distinction wbatsoener the
means of education:
Be it enacted by His Excelleney Her Majesty's Superintendent, by and with
the advice and consent of the Public Meeting of the said Settlement at this
time assembled, and by the authority of the same, that, from and after the
passing of this Act, it shall and may be lanful for Her Majesty's
Superintendent of the said Settlement, or the officer administering the
government for the time being, lo nominale and appoint a Board of
Education, consisting of five (5) persons, wbo shall be anthorized and
reguired to carry into operationthe provisions of
this act...
Who were the people who conscientiously refused to attend the
Anglican school or who possibly were discriminated against?
Clearly they would have included the Baptists and the
Methodists, but there was another group to be taken into
account, the Roman Catholics who now included Mexican
refugees. Other than these, the general population of the
settlement was extending itself into other parts of what was by
this time emerging as the territory of British Honduras, for
instance the southern coastal areas settled by the Caribs. At the
same time the Belize Government had to take cognizance of the
British policy that education should be extended to all classes of
people under the aegis of the churches. Consequently, to ensure
the implementation of this emergent policy of the British it
- 21
In 1868 the Belize government shifted its policy relating to the
church-state partnership. The Board of Education was aboished
and its powers were transferred to the Executive Council of the
colony. Government schools were abolished and regulations were
passed by which teachers were to be paid on the basis of school
attendance. It set out regulations which abolished the church-state
and instead sought to centralize the administration of
the schools. What led up to this move? At the time when the
partnership
Belize was taking steps towards regular1zing the
church-state partnership and to place it on a firm legal bas1s,
community
in
measures
were
taken in
England
establish
a
system
Some
of
being
to
national
education.
of
what
happened in England
impacted education in
Belize. In 1858 a Royal
Commission
appointed
in
Was
the
metropolitan country
to investigate the
complicated system of
the intention here to enter into the
which was
details of the report of the Newcastle Commission
criticized the system of
completed in 1861 except to state that it
education which was in existence at
state grants towards elementary
results." It
the time and recommended a system of "payment by
national education."
also
regarded
recommended
which had a
an
the
It is
not
pupil-teacher system favourably and
additional grant for pupil-teachers "to schools
The
report from Her Majesty's inspector."
satisfactory
recommendations of the Newcastle Commission aroused a great
deal of criticism in England
centralization of
education,
as
it
was
something
directed towards the
that was met with
objections on both religious and political grounds.
results"
In Belize, by the regulations of 1868 "payments by
was
put on a firm bas1s.
introduced and the pupil-teacher system
Education were transferred to the
The powers of the Board of
- 25-
was
Executive Council of the Colony
The Honduras Free Schools also
and the Board ceased
to evie
ceased to exist as government
passed by the Executive Council
attendance and their succes S
teachers were paid according to pupil
the colony's population had
in the annual examinations. By then,
number of children on school rolls
increased to some 25,000, the
institutions. Under the regulations
the
hadreached 1,100, with average
attendance
being 784.
set out regulations for the
In 1871 the Executive Council
aid. These regulations
guidance of schools receiving government
for the first and second
for the examination of candidates
provided
ot
class teachers' certificates and for the payment
monthly grants to
teachers of schools having an average attendance of twenty-five
The school ages commenced at three years and
to be open at least
ended at fifteen years. Schools were required
the school curriculum was
every month and
pupls and above.
eighteen days
prescribed as follows:
Reading, spelling, writing on slate, copybook andfrom
dictation
Arithmetic slate or mental
Grammar, Geograply, Outlines of History% needlework for girls
(Dillon, 1905)
Prizes were offered for regular attendance and, for good
behaviour.
In that same year the records show that there were
fourteen schools with a total enrolment of 1,762 pupils while the
average attendance was 1,057 pupils.
In 1891 the number of schools increased to thirty-five with
2,994 pupils on roll and an average attendance of 2,013. The
Belize
colony's population was 31,471. There were nine schools in
Town, the rest being in the other districts. The information
obtained on primary education for the period being considered
shows that while the schools in towns and large villages were fairly
successful, some on the outside of Belize Town, on the river banks,
or near to logwood and mahogany works often met with failure
because of the migtatory character of the population. The greater
number of such schools had to be closed not long after being
opened. (Dillon, 1905).
-
26-
The Education Ordinance (1892)
The 1892 Education Ordinance re-established a Board ot
Education and provided for a code of school rules to be drawn up
and promulgated by the Board of Education. The Board consisted
of the Governor as President, the members of the Executive
Council and five other members appointed by the Governor.
No document has been uncovered so far which could throw
some light as to the reasons why the government of Briush
Honduras
reverted
to
the
church-state
partnership
atter its
experiment with the centralization of the primary school
administration and the policy of "payment by results." We do know
that the system which was adopted in England was not successful
and was brought to an end just about the close of the nineteenth
century. Barnard (1963) writes that "payment by results" did not
disappear until 1897 but by the 1870's some modifications were
made in the code which it was based on. These modifications cased
some of the harshness which resulted from the operation of that
system. Barnard concludes: "But so long as it lasted and particularly
in its earlier days the system had deleterious effect." Evidently the
schools in Belize must have experienced similar ill effects and these
must have influenced the colony's government to revert to the
policy of church-state partnership. Clearly, however, it could not do
so without the authorization of the Colonial Office. The 1892
ordinance laid down the conditions under which grants-in-aid were
to be given. These are as follows:
1.
the property and management of the school was to be
vested in managers having the power to appoint and dismiss
teachers and the responsibility for payment of teachers'
salaries and all the expenses of the school
2. the school was to be at all times open to inspection by the
Inspector, the Sub-Inspector, any member of the Board or
any member of the District Board;
3. the school was to be opened to children without distinction
of religion or race;
- 27-
35 to 51 with an enrolment of 3,547 pupils. By the end of the
nineteenth century the church-state system of administering and
controlling formal education, especially at the primary school level
was well in place. It continued to be the basis of the formal system
of education, with a number of changes in ensuing years, until 1962
when a new education ordinance was passed in the Legislature of
Belize. The 1962 Education Ordinance replaced the former Board
of Education, which had executive powers, with two advisory
bodies. However, the essential elements of the church-state system
of education have prevailed up to the present.
Educational administration and control really have to do with
such matters as:
providing school places for pupils of certain age levels;
2. ensuring that such pupils attend school for a certain portion
of the year;
1.
3.
ensuring that the schools are staffed with teachers and that
4.
those teachers do teach the pupils;
ensuring that there are disciplinary rules for both pupils and
teachers;
ensuring that there is financial support for the schools;
6. ensuring that there is a satisfactory management system
according to which schools operate.
5.
The church-state partnership in the above-mentioned regard was
accepted by the colonizers of Belize as an appropriate pohcy to
pursue in the development of education in Belize in the nineteenth
century in the same way as it was considered equally appropriate in
other British colonies in the West Indies. To this end laws were
passed to establish the legal and administrative foundations of
primary education governance and control by a close collaboration
of church and state. The instrument used in the implementation of
the policy of church-state partnership was the Board of Education.
The Board was an executive body with wide powers having to do
with the operation of primary schools. It was not merely an
advisory body. It was a major instrument of the colonial education
system.
- 29
Secondary Education
Secondary education was not introduced in Bel1ze until during
the last two decades of the nineteenth century.
No recorded
evidence has been assembled so far as to why secondary education
was neglected for such a
long
time following the introduction
of schooling in Belize.
Consequently,
one
can
only
surmise that the missionaries
were mustering all the
resources at their disposal to
St. Catherine Academy founded 1886.
no
wish
to
assume
promote elementary education
and that the government had
respons1bility
tor
establishing
even
one
government secondary school since there was not a great demand,
at least in the view of the ruling class, for many local employees with
secondary schooling
Nevertheless, with the increase of wealth among the more
fortunate within the local population there must have been a
afford to advance
growing interest among those parents who
the education of their children, to see the beginning of secondary
schooling in the Colony. Missionaries on their part viewed
secondary education as a welcome path in which to continue the
spiritual and moral training they had been fostering so as to have
could
educated Christian youths
participating in the religtous
life of the community.
8
In 1882 the Methodist
Mission opened the original
Wesley High School for
boys. In 1883, through the
effort of the Catholic
Bishop in Belize the Mercy
Wesley College founded 1882.
Sisters in New Orleans
agreed to have a number of their members establish a high school
in Belize town. St. Catherine Academy was inaugurated in 1886. St.
- 30
John's College began its life as a select school in 1887 and became
operational as St. John's College in 1896.
In 1887 the Diocesan
High School for girls was opened and thereafter a Diocesan High
School for Boys was established. The former became St. Hildas
College, the latter St. Michael's College. They were amalgamated in
1997 to become Anglican Cathedral College.
Records for 1902 show that there were four private secondary
schools run by the churches and two smaller secular ones in Belize
town.
The only input by the government was in the form of
bonuses to schools or teachers of successful candidates who sat the
Cambridge Local Examinations. The 1892 Education Ordinance
had provided for the award of secondary school scholarships but
these were discontinued before long
St. John's College founded in 1887.
**
Originally
Diocesan
High
-31
School for Girl's.