PORTUGUESE AFRICA
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(normally given after three years of instruction) until they are twelve
to fourteen years of age.
The ensino primdrio program—that is, the third and fourth years
—covers materials similar to those used for Portuguese children at
the same level. Content analysis of the textbooks used indicates that
the entire focus is on Portuguese culture; African history and culture
are totally ignored. Emphasis is on the Portuguese language; the
geography of Portuguese territories; the history of metropolitan
Portugal, including Portuguese discoveries and conquests; Christian
morals; handicrafts; and agriculture.
Beyond the fourth year, there is a class where students are theoretically prepared for either high school or industrial or technical
schools. However, very few mission schools actually have this fifth-
year program, so the opportunity for an African child to gain the
necessary certification to permit him to enter secondary school has
been almost nil, unless he moved to the city to attend a private
school qualified to prepare him to take the admission exams for the
secondary program.
Although over 98 per cent of the white Portuguese living in the
African territories are Catholics, the government has retained control
of the schools catering to the educational needs of whites, Asians, and
assimilados. Children from these groups may attend either state-
owned or privately owned schools, but curricula and examinations
are, in both cases, supervised by the state. These state schools for
Europeans are under the administrative direction of the Ministry of
National Education in Lisbon. Within the Ministry, education in
Portuguese Africa and Asia is supervised by the Department of Overseas Education. There is a Division of Education for Portuguese
East Africa, another for West Africa, and one for Guinea and the
islands, each headed by a territorial director. Each director is assisted
by two inspectors, one for primary schools and the other for school
health.
Education is compulsory for all European children who reside
within three kilometers (almost two miles) of a school and are between
seven and twelve years of age. Although the prescribed age of entry
into primary school is seven, children may be admitted one year
earlier. The curriculum of these state schools is the same as that of
all Portuguese schools at the same level in metropolitan Portugal,
except for some minor adjustments to local geographic, climatic, and
social conditions.
A considerable number of European and Asian children, and a
very few Africans, attend private schools supervised by the govern-
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