2j6
THE   EDUCATED   AFRICAN
grade level.* Intermediate and higher education have been available
only to whites, Asians, and children of those few thousand Africans
who have so completely absorbed the Portuguese language and culture as to become officially regarded as first-class citizens (assimilados
in Mozambique and civilizados in Angola), on a basis of equality
with white Portuguese.
Precisely how the new political reforms announced by Portuguese
Overseas Minister Adriano Moreira on August 28, 1961, will affect
the system of education now existing in Portugal's African provinces
is not yet clear. These reforms would abolish the legal distinction
between those Africans who have "assimilated" Portuguese civilization
and the great majority of tribal Africans. All will henceforth share
the same constitutional rights, Dr. Moreira said, "with no distinction
of race, religion, or culture." However, the vote will generally be
limited—as in metropolitan Portugal—to persons who can read and
write Portuguese or who can pay 200 escudos (about $7.00) per
year in taxes. In some local elections, however, all heads of families
will vote. In the same announcement, Dr. Moreira also noted plans to
increase white settlement of both Angola and Mozambique, and
expressed a particular hope that many of the soldiers engaged in
suppressing the Angola rebellion would decide to remain in the
territory as settlers.
The Philosophy of Education
At all levels, the schools for Africans are primarily agencies for the
spread of the Portuguese language and culture. The educational
policies followed in Africa reflect the Portuguese Government's
unique concept of its colonial responsibility—to work toward integration of the Africans within its jurisdiction into Portuguese culture
and society, rather than toward the goal of preparing them for
eventual self-government. Broadly, the Portuguese ideal has been
that carefully controlled education will in time create an African
populace that speaks only Portuguese, embraces Catholicism, and is
as intensely Portuguese nationalist as citizens of the metropole. If
all Africans in these territories become Portuguese nationalists, ipso
facto, there is no threat of African nationalism. But only 30,089t
Africans   in   Angola   and   4,349   in   Mozambique   had   reached   the
• These statistics must be seen, however, in relation to Portugal's own educational
problems. According to 1958 UNESCO figures, the rate of illiteracy in Portugal was
44 per cent. Similarly, more than 50 per cent of Angola's Europeans are illiterate.
t Including families of Africans and mulattoes (called mistos).
"