Educational Reorganization for National Development in Tonga

Abstract

After the First World War, interest in and concern for education began to grow and especially in its relation to social, economic and political development. In many ways, the beginning of this educational wave was marked by the Phelps-Stokes Reports which were completed in 1920-21 and 1924. This concern with education and development was further reflected in a report by the Advisory Committee on Native Education in the British Tropical African Dependencies made in 1925.In the foreword to another report on African education, the relation between education and development was firmly stated: "It is far truer that the general health of the community, its general well-being and prosperity, can only be secured and maintained if the whole mass of the people has a real share in education and has some understanding of its meaning and purpose. It is equally true that without such general share in education and such understanding, true democracy cannot function, and the rising hope of self-government will inevitably suffer frustration. However, it was not until after the Second World War, with the 'great awakening' and what Adlai Stevenson called "the resolution of rising expectations", that the real importance of education to individual and national development was firmly established and universally recognized.