Paper long abstract:

Following the granting of internal self-government to the three existing administrative regions in pre-independence Nigeria in the 1950s, (during a period of transition to the country’s full political independence in 1960), Nigerians in the respective regions had hoped for a dramatic transformation in the socio-economic scene. Action Group, the political party that took over from the British colonial administrators in the Western Region of Nigeria on the eve of the country’s independence, had in 1951 announced proposals for a free and universal education for the region. That revolutionary educational scheme, which was launched in 1955, was an exemplary innovation in the history of education in Nigeria as it marked a radical departure from the hitherto existing educational structure in the entire country, giving the people a sense of self-fulfilment and anticipation for a new era.

This paper highlights the significant developments of the new educational programme, bringing out the salient effects the revolutionary scheme has produced on the economy, social-structure, political consciousness, intellectual life, gender relations, etc. It equally sheds light on the major forces that have shaped the revolutionary trend of western education in Western Nigeria ever since, through changing political scenes in the country: from Parliamentary democracy to Military dictatorship, to Presidential democracy, to Military dictatorship once again, and back to Presidential democracy, during the fifty-year period covered by the paper, from 1955 to 2005.