State officials pursued a parallel industrial school while the private one failed
Evidence
Van Hoëvell’s analysis was prescient and probably correct, but it went un- heeded by government authorities who were working in a different politi- cal frame and from a different timetable. A state inquiry into the creation of a government-backed industrial school was in the making even before the first private initiative for the school had failed. Writing to the Governor-General in 1854, the Minister of Colonies gave his support for an industrial-technical school that would train needy descendants of Eu- ropeans to become land surveyors, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and wagon makers, among other trades. Students would be drawn from the local orphanage and do on-the-job training in Soerabaja’s naval work- shops. Training was to consist of formal classes and apprenticeship with skilled European craftsmen. — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 700
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: Relevant to archival research on Dutch colonial education policy and its institutional history.