Colonial education served economic productivity and loyalty-building simultaneously.

Evidence

The accent upon reading and writing at the regional school level was designed to guarantee the federation the literate auxiliary personnel that it needed to embark on a program of mutually beneficial mise en valeur. Instruction of the mass of Africans was to contribute to the same end by teaching them basic skills that would help raise their productivity. In keeping with the new trends in sociology, local history, African traditions, and Arabic were now all emphasized; this would avoid uprooting Africans from their own cultures. Instruction in French and French colonial history would also help Africans to love the motherland, to understand French motives, and to gain access to the ideas that made France civilized. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 275

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Education simultaneously raises worker productivity and defuses class conflict to preserve profits — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 226