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Paper short abstract:

The educational proposals of the Yoruba Action Group in 1952 had been shaped from the British traditions therefore, despite it huge consequences on the building process of the Yoruba regional identity, it was rather inconsistant regarding the theorical reframing of a post-colonial primary education policy.

Paper long abstract:

The training of yoruba primary schools teachers in nigerian Teachers Training Institutes and in UK after the 2d WW had multiple consequences on the framing of the Free Education Scheme in the Yoruba Western Region of Nigeria proposed in 1952 and implemented up to 1963. Due to the way christian mission schools were involved in the colonial education policy up to the 2WW, there had been few questions about the relevantness to go ahead with the same principles after 1945. It was the case for the colonial policy and its financements after the war but also for the Free Education Scheme set up by the Action Group, the nationalist Yoruba party and their leaders and policy designers M. Adekunle Ajasin, Stephen Awokoya and Obafemi Awolowo in 1952.

Through the past interactions with their UK professors at the IoE in London, the practices of the Department of education in the British administration in Nigeria, the necessity to start from the existant system set up in the 19th C., and the social aspirations of the Yoruba, M. A. Ajasin as well as S. Awokoya did not break off with the former colonial system as it could have been proposed in other colonial territories. From the archival material collected in London and Nigeria, this proposal aim to illustrate how this educational proposal had been politically of huge consequences in the building process of the Yoruba regional political identity when it was rather inconsistant regarding the theorical reframing of a post-colonial primary education policy.