The Role of the Church in Education in Jamaica

THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN EDUCATION IN JAMAICA

The Church has played and continues to play a very pivotal role in education in Jamaica. Pivotal in that it continues to be one of the major players is deciding directional changes (negatively or positively) in the Jamaican society. The Church's involvement in schools and by extension education, curriculum, management and administration, or the lack thereof has influence numerous outcomes at various stages of the country's history.

Jamaica's first encounter with the church came in the form of Roman Catholicism which was introduced by the Spanish settlers who arrived in the island in 1504. The main concern of the church then was to ensure that the doctrine of Catholicism was perpetuated. Education took the form of teaching children of Spanish settlers to read the scriptures. This approach was underpinned by the prevailing philosophy of the day, perennialism, which stressed the three R's as well as moral and religious training.

When the British captured Jamaica in 1655, the Church of England became the state church. It was the church of the white planters and they too focused on doctrinal education. Despite the efforts of the church hierarchy in England to have the local church to instruct the slaves in Christianity, the Church of England, (later called the Anglican Church) almost totally rejected slaves throughout the 18th century.

The main focus of the plantation owners was work and wealth. There was no provision for slaves to receive formal education. Slaves only received training that would increase or improve their labour. The planters objected to any other form of learning for their slaves as it was feared that an educated slave would resist enslavement. In essence the education that the church provided "complemented that of the administrators and that of the dominant class in that ideology rather than physical cohesion transformed the ex-slaves into a stable, obedient and hard-working class of wage-labourers".

Conversely there appears to have been little in the way of a formal education system for whites. Planter's children got minimal learning experiences in their homes. Later it became the custom of wealthier planters to send their children to schools and colleges in England and in a few cases to British North America. "White colonists who could afford it sent their sons back to the "mother country" for schooling, while others hired private tutors. Those who were less affluent sent their sons to one of the few free schools that were established through bequests from wealthy planters and merchants". (Hamilton, 1997)

Once slavery was abolished in 1834 the British saw education as an important way to integrate ex-slaves into the colonial economy and to ensure a peaceful lower class (Morrison & Milner 1995). It was the churches however that the main burden of organizing