PAUL JOHN RICH
Ministry of Education and Youth Welfare, Qatar
 

A poor child can seldom catch up with a rich one.
--- Ivan Illich

The Public School background of British Imperial administrators influenced their educational decisions. In the Arabian Gulf sheikdom of Bahrain, an abortive attempt in 1941, to found an English-style Public School provides evidence of how the ideology the Empire's rulers had absorbed in adolescence determined the development of education in distant territories. The incident further demonstrates the ubiquity of the debate over quality and equality in education.

The schools of the British Empire were as varied as its peoples, but not so the attitude of the Imperial administrators towards education itself. The prevailing attitude of the British Imperial administrators towards education was duly coloured by their uniform public school hackground. An incident in the Arabian Gulf during February-May 1941 illustrates this fact.

The sheikdoms of the Gulf were among the more exotic of Britain's far-flung possessions. Arguably the principal one at the time was Bahrain, an archipelago twenty miles off the Arabian coast whose largest island is twenty-seven miles long and ten miles wide. In 1941, Bahrain had a population of about 120,000.' It was there that the British proposed to start a public school on English lines.

British affairs in the region wore handled by the Political Resident, appointed by the Government of India. Despite the social and technological upheaval between the two World Wars, the Residency displayed little change in activity or policy on the eve of World War 11 from its position just after World War 1. As for education, universal literacy was as remote a goal as ever.2

While Europe plunged into war, Charles Prior, the Gulf's Political Resident (from 1939 to 1946) was involved in trying to establish a boarding school to solve the problem of 'contamination' of Gulf students by foreign contact.3 In addition to Bahrain the Political Resident's brief included the Arab emirates of Kuwait and Qatar, as well as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and five smaller states strung along the coast of Arabia.4 The local schools in these states were mostly simple ones, attached to mosques, but students going overseas for study were hampered by the Resident's reluctance to give permission for Arab youth to do so. Ironically the countries about whose influence Prior most fretted, Egypt and Iraq, were under British control.

Prior frequently expressed his misgivings about Gulf students being educated outside their native states, despite the lack of opportunities at home. Rather typically, he wrote to the British Ambassador in Cairo and to the External Affairs Department of the Indian Government: 'Iraq have [sic] of course endeavoured to attract Kuwait pupils for some time past with ulterior motives.'5

Besides his efforts to keep Gulf youth from studying in other Arab countries, Prior kept a close watch on local schools and any new developments that wore proposed. Prior's sarcasm about the Amir of Kuwait hiring Egyptian teachers without consulting him is ironic considering the many times the British had unilaterally recruited staff without a word to the Amir: '. . . [the Amir] probably enjoyed the pleasant feeling of independence it gave him'.

In the late 1930s there was an increase in local interest in improving Kuwaiti education, and the Kuwaitis themselves discussed creating a directorate of education. Despite the fact that this initial impetus and proposed funding were local rather than British, Prior observed:

It is therefore my opinion that the new Director should be an Englishman . . . [Kuwaitis] will accept the commands of a recognized superior readily enough but they will not accept advice, no matter how well meant, from those whom they consider little better than themselves. They demand dictatorship.7

A British director was duly appointed, but he did not endorse Prior's ideas about education.

The incident that upset the normally uncontroversial Gulf educational scene was partly the consequence of Prior's conviction that students from the lower classes should, at best, receive only rudimentary schooling, regardless of ability. He had introduced 'practical' classes when he was merely Agent in Bahrain (1929-32), long before becoming the Resident.8 Anything more advanced was to be reserved for the children of the ruling class. In Prior's mind education was closely allied to political control of the Gulf.

A valuable insight into his political attitudes is provided by a letter he wrote in August 1941 to Olaf Caroe, the External Affairs Secretary of the Indian Government, a Wykhamist and former Gulf Resident (1937). Prior, worried about Shaikh Abdullah, the Ruler of Qatar, who was suspected of wanting an Iraqui 'adviser', wrote:

Our position in these waters depends, however, not so much on our Treaties as upon the good-will of the Arab Rulers and prestige and power of our Political Officers. Daly [Clive Kirpatrick Daly, Bahrain Agent 1921-26], for example, was able in a few years to turn Bahrain into more of a British protectorate than the average Indian State without much assistance from the Treaty position or the Residency or any one else. Similarly, an incompetent officer ignorant of Arab ways and mentality could lose us our position with almost equal rapidity, in fact I have very often wondered how far we should be able to maintain our position if it was seriously challenged by any State which desired, for example, an anschluss with Saudi Arabia or Iraq.9

School policy had to adhere to the status quo. On the other hand, realizing that not doing anything at all might precipitate an Arab initiative, Prior emphasized: '. . . the importance of maintaining as far as possible British control of education in the area'.10

Despite many years of British involvement, there was a paucity of educated natives and little British understanding of the connection between that scarcity and the scarcity of adequate schools. Tom Hickinbotham, an Old Epsomian and the Bahrain Agent in 1937 and again in 1943 45, was much exercised about education of the native Bahraini judges in 1944:

It has come to my knowledge that the composition of and the lack of ability of the Bahrain Government judicial benches is causing flnfavourable comment in the town ... it is better that the judges be drawn from the ranks of the ancient aristocracy, but it is in my opinion preferable that, be they from the aristocracy or the proletariat, they acquire some knowledge of the law. 11

To meet the immediate problem of finding a native judge, Hickinbotham proposed sending a son of the Ruler's uncle overseas. Shaikh Salman was only twenty-four, and had gone to the American College in Beirut, where he had received a high school diploma. After graduating in 1940, he had been unemployed, not because of laziness but 'much to his disgust' because of the lack of opportunities in Manama, Bahrain's capital. Hickinbotham thought him a prospect to lead the judiciary, but the dilemma was where to send him and be sure he did come back aseptic: 'I have considered the advantages and disadvantages of India, Iraq, and Palestine as suitable training grounds and I have come to the conclusion that the last named is the most suitable country for a young Arab to be instructed in the administration of justice.'12

The problem of where to send Shaikh Salman was symptomatic of British problems with education in the Gulf. The British were concerned about the lack of trained Arabs for administration but they wore equally concerned about the possible troubles that would be stirred up by letting Arabs study abroad. The Gulf Arabs were equally dissatisfied with the situation. American espionage reports indicated less Arab acquiescence to those conditions than did the British reports. In 1944 the American intelligence officer at Basra visited Kuwait and reported:

An audience was had with Shaikh Ahmed Al-Jabir As-Subah, Ruler of Kuwait, who responded, through an interpreter, to some pleasantry about his attractive country that 'It was not his country but belonged to the British and Americans.' This was said without any apparent bitterness and a few minutes later during the conversation, he added in what seemed to be a serious manner, that the 'door of Kuwait was always open to the Americans' and, with a glance toward a British Captain among the visitors, he further stated that 'he did not say that [about] the British because it was unnecessary for one to open the door when the party was already in the house.'13

America had its own old boy network in the area, consisting of those who went to the American University in Beirut or its secondary school.14 The American schools and colleges in Lebanon had achieved a pro-eminent position in the Middle East, but not in the Gulf15 where the British had resolutely blocked Arab efforts to take advantage of such opportunities. Confronted by pressure to provide an alternative to the suspect Egyptian, Iraqi and Lebanese schools, Prior proposed in 1941 the establishment of a scheme for an English Public School in Bahrain. More than any other episode in Gulf educational history machination over the school encapsulates how the British felt about education in their Arab domains.

The idea of a Public School for the Gulf had arisen before, but crystallized in February 1941, when the British Council was able to send its Cairo-based educational representative, C. A. F. Dundas, on a tour of the area. In his initial report he summarized the situation up to that time:

For several years past the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf has felt increasing uneasiness at the extent to which boys from the Gulf area have been absorbing anti-British political theories by attending education institutions in Iraq and Syria. There is no doubt that the Government of Iraq is alive to the possibilities of 'infecting' students from the Gulf (particularly Kuwait) and in many cases  free places have been found in Iraqi institutions for boys from the Arab coast between Kuwait and Muscat. 16

The visit of Dundas brought to a head discussions amongst the British Agents in Kuwait and Bahrain, the Gulf Resident, and the Council. " A few years earlier, Captain Gerald DeGaury, then Kuwait Agent, had drawn attention in particular to the problems created by boys wanting to go abroad. His replacement, Major A. C. Galloway, expressed similar statements and the matter became more pressing until the founding of a school became a top priority. Dundas wrote:

. .. Colonel Prior, Major Alban (Political Agent, Bahrain) and Major Galloway (Political Agent, Kuwait) have severally informed me that the education of boys from the Gulf area in surroundings where British influence predominates would have far-reaching political results. This is particularly important, as further exploitation of oil in Eastern Arabia must lead to increased commercial development and increased possibilities of foreign, i,e. non-British interference. 18

Unfortunately for political harmony in the small British Gulf community, Dundas did not reach agreement with everyone who was interested in the problem. On arriving in Bahrain he encountered C. R. L. Adrian-Valiance, the newly appointed director of education. Valiance was the Englishman Prior had considered necessary to safeguard British interests in the new directorate, but he was working directly with the Arabs and unlike anyone else involved, had visited a large number of native schools.

He told Dundas that rather than start an English-style Public School he wanted to upgrade an existing Bahrain school, the Kuliya or senior school, which served a broad spectrum of Bahrain society. Since part of the new scheme was to make Bahrain a centre for secondary education for all the British-protected Gulf sheikdoms, Valiance proposed that if the Residency wanted to use Bahrain for educating students from other Gulf countries, such students should first be put into the existing Bahrain junior schools. If they were successful there, they could then take the same entrance examination for the Bahrain senior school like everyone else.

Valiance was a fervent advocate of competitive examinations. This was the last thing that Dundas wanted to hear. His idea, he told Valiance, was to pick students from the 'right' families, not to have open competition. Dundas told Prior that if Valiance went ahead with his plans to control admissions by examination it was probable that 'the sons of Shaikhs and other notables would not necessarily be able to obtain any education after the age of 13 plus'. Hammering home this point, he warned the Resident that if Valiance had his way with the meritocratic examinations it was inevitable that the sons of important men would fail to get into school and there would be political trouble: 'There will be discontent at the Government's refusal to provide education for them'.19

Dundas was adamant that Bahrain should have a Public School on English lines, with entrance carefully controlled by the Residency. Sign~ficantly, at no time in the discussions of the Bahrain scheme did anyone but Valiance speak out for selection by merit. Prior and his Agents supported Dundas.

The proposed school would have involved expenses exceeding the total expenditures of all the sheikdoms for their existing network of small mosque schools. Had the scheme succeeded, the bulk of the Gulf's tiny education budget would have been devoted to one school. In some respects the situation would have been analogous to England, where some public schools enjoyed budgets grossly disproportionate to local council schools.

But Dundas did not propose a privately-funded school. The major source of the school's funding would have been customs duties that directly affected the price of basic commodities. At first it might appear that in this way the Bahrain school would have differed from the privately supported English Public Schools, but it should be noted that English Public Schools were never totally privately financed. As critics such as Professor Simon have pointed out, they received hidden subsidies because of their charitable and tax exempt status, direct government subsidies for specific building projects and activities like the cadet corps, and significant government aid for the tuition of boys whose parents wore in the colonial service and diplomatic corps. The whole British population helped pay, albeit involuntarily and unknowingly, for the schools that their children had no chance of attending. The Gulf population would have been put in an even more invidious position.20

Such historical considerations wore far from Dundas' mind. Brusquely rejecting Valiance's plea to help the existing schools which were open to everybody, he pushed ahead with plans for elaborate facilities that would consume a substantial part of the education resources of the Gulf: 'The whole could be housed in fine buildings with adequate grounds and playing fields which would not only be a draw for boys from outside, but a cause of satisfaction and pride to Bahrainis.' 21 The new school was to have boarding accommodation for more than 195 boys and classrooms for 500, and its senior staff wore to be British. 22

Dundas wanted the school to be called the Shazkh Hamad School, in honour of the Bahrain~ Amir. The running expenses were to be derived from the customs levies, but capital gifts were needed and the proposed name anticipated the contribution that the Amir was expected to make. Other gifts might be honoured by naming various houses, for there was to be a house system as in the English Public Schools, and an emphasis would be on the boarding principle. Bahrain was a very small island, but in Dundas' opinion: 'It might be considered advisable to allow Bahrain~ boys to attend the junior school as day boys, but the~r character training and probably the standard of work would suffer.'  23

Prior centred discussion on the school's political potential. He wrote to Dundas:

As you know, we are greatly concerned with the strategic advantages of a quiet pied-a-terra here, and anything that disturbed the political atmosphere would be contrary to our interests. We therefore have to consider any proposals from the political as well as the educational point of view . . . It appears to be a universal law in the East that the unemployed student is the normal focus for political agitation, and there have already been signs of this in Bahrain and Kuwait. We should therefore consider closely the probable sources of employment open to these students and make our plans accordingly... 24

In reply to Prior's concerns, Dundas emphasized the favourable political results he was sure would ensue from 'Gulf College'. It would be the remedy to schools overseas that might plant anti-British ideas, and 'Boys who have spent 3 to 8 years at the Gulf College would be much less prone to unfavourable influences in Iraq or elsewhere than they are at present.' Furthermore, a proper Public School ' . . . would help in extending British influence and ideas amongst the sons of important residents in the Persian Gulf area.' For Dundas, the obvious route for education in the Gulf was to start a Public School which '...would provide a sound, liberal education under British influence' . 25

His desire to create an Arab upper-class education based on the English boarding schools represented a misreading of the Gulf tradition. Gulf sheikhs are not really the equivalent of the English aristocracy nor are they monarchs in a British mould. The whole emphasis of Gulf tradition is more on equality. Oblivious to this, Dundas pressed Alban, the Bahrain Political Agent, to get a 'royal' charter from Shaikh Hamad. For the school's constitution he put forward a contract similar to that which the British Council had attempted to negotiate with the Government of Iraq in establishing King Faisal College in Baghdad. 26

The proposed Bahrain Public School constitution is noteworthy for showing how the British proposed to structure education in the Gulf and for the emphasis placed on the non-academic development of boys, i.e. character formation:

Whereas the system of education in the English Schools known as Public Schools aims not only at scholastic instruction but also at the development of character and the sense of responsibility;

And whereas the said Public Schools are free, not connected with the Government Department of Education, and each is governed by its own Council, and this freedom is essential to the carrying out of the aims of the system;

And whereas the School known as Victoria College, Alexandria, is an English Public School abroad and is self-governing;

Now, therefore, in order to fulfil the wish expressed by the Government of Iraq that a school on the model of the Victoria College be established in Iraq 27

While King Faisal College was to have the King of Iraq, 'or during his minority His Highness the Regent' as its patron, the Bahrain school would have the Amir. 'His Britannic Majesty's Representative in Iraq' was to serve the College as vice-patron. In the Gulf, that would have been the Political Resident. The Iraq school council was to include the Headmaster of Victoria College, Alexandria, the leading British Public School in the Middle East. The first article of its charter reiterated the constitution's declaration the school was founded 'for the purposes of giving to boys of Iraqi and other nationalities an education on the model of Victoria College, Alexandra, and the schools known in England as the Public Schools'. 28

Valiance would have none of it. He felt it represented a virtual abandonment of the native schools which he was struggling to improve. The bitter disagreement between Valiance and Dundas dramatizes the debate over equality of educational opportunity. As might be expected from someone proposing a Public School for the children of the leading families on the model of the great schools of England, Dundas steadfastly opposed Valiance's use of open examinations to determine placement. He wrote of his encounter with Valiance:

From his own accounts the reforms instituted by him in the schools of Bahrain are bearing fruit, but I am doubtful of his wisdom in so rapidly instituting a system of superannuation. The policy which he is following allows of no education for those over 14 unless they can pass a competitive examination into the Final School. This year some 60 boys have been turned out of the schools, many of them sons of important people. I believe this to have caused considerable dissatisfaction and I feel it is dangerous to run an educational system on purely selective lines, particularly in a Sheikhdom. The sons of Sheikhs and of rich merchants require as good an education as can be given for they are certain to take a large part in the life of the state. 29

Since the Amir of Bahrain showed a notable lack of enthusiasm for the scheme and Valiance was adamant in his opposition, the prospects of a confrontation if Prior went ahead seemed certain. However, regardless of the pros and cons of the proposal, he had to face the fact that the 'phoney wart in Europe had become a real one and that starting any kind of school would be unrealistic under the circumstances. He accordingly in May 1941, wrote to the External Affairs Department in India that a postponement would be necessary. 30

Everything else was put aside as the Gulf became a crucial Allied supply route, and military strategy relegated educational development to temporary oblivion. Valiance was superannuated at the end of 1941 and no more was heard from him or for that matter from Dundas, but the India Office remained interested in having a Public School in Bahrain, as did the Foreign Office. In 1942 the British Minister in Baghdad wrote a circular letter to senior government people in the Gulf, India, and England:

It is very undesirable from every point of view that pupils should come to seek education in Iraq. The atmosphere of the schools is politically and morally corrupt; the educational standard is appallingly low. I imagine that in present circumstances the movements of external pupils will be largely restricted. At the same time I suggest the desirability of informing the Governments of the various countries concerned that every obstacle should be placed in the way of pupils coming to Aden. I know that such stops wore taken some time ago by the Governor of Aden. 31

InJune 1942, Sir David Monteath of the India Office wrote to Sir Maurice Peterson in the Foreign Office: 'The chief difficulty is, of course, the question of finance, and I do not think it will be possible to make any progress towards the establishment of the College while the war lasts. 32 As late as February 1945, Tom Hickinbotham wrote to Prior about 'the possible revival of the question of a Gulf College'.33

There could be no better example of the issues raised by Public School influence in Imperial education than the debate between Dundas and Valiance. The issue was ancient, one that occupied the Greek philosophers and which arises whenever educational resources must be distributed. In the ninety years of Indian Government administration of the Gulf the argument was consistently resolved in favour of the élite, but the Bahrain Public School affair shows that élitism did not totally reign without some opposition.

A short time after Hickinbotham sought to revive the project, such discussion became irrelevant. In India, Britain's day was over and, by implication, that of the Indian Political Service in the Gulf. Others would have to resolve, if indeed anyone could or ever would, the conflicting claims between quality and equality of education.

NOTES

1. M. Epstein, ed., The Statesman's Year-Book, 1940, Macmillan, 692-3.

2. 'The life of the British in India, even in 1939, was still Victorian. Clothes had changed, some customs a little, but the framework of life had been settled in the last years of the old Queen. And since it was a country ruled by an official hierarchy, it was socially conservative. Seniority played a big part in promotion and senior officials do not usually undervalue the wisdom that experience has brought them. In social matters they are likely to prefer the standards of their youth and long before the young men of their day have become old enough to change things they too have accepted the standards of their seniors . . . And again, the time-lag was greater with the ICS (Indian Civil Service) and the Indian Army than with officers of the British service, who were often more aware of modifications in the social climate in England—but then they seldom stayed in India long enough to have much influence.' Charles Allen, Plain Tales From the Raj, Andre Deutsch, 1975, 16.

3. Prior was Resident from September 1939 until May 1946, relieved by Old Bradfieldian William Hay from October of 1941 until September of 1942 and succeeded by him in May of 1946. Hay soldiered on after transfer of the Gulf to the Colonial Of fice, finally retiring in 1953. Interference by the Residents in even the smallest details of local education was consistent: 'I have had the list of books (enclosed) examined, but it is a very large one, and without the books themselves, I am unable to say more than that those marked which a pencil cross are politically undesirable.' C.J. Pelly (Agent, Bahrain) to F.J, Wakelin, Director of Education (Bahrain and Kuwait), 25 November 1943, Indian Office Records (in the India Office Library and Records, London, henceforth IOR): R/15/5/197. See IOR: R/15/5/197, British Embassy, Cairo, to Resident, Bahrain, I June 1945.

4. In 1971 the Gulf emirates with the exception of Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar formed a federation, the United Arab Emirates.

5. IOR: R/15/1/546, p. 44.

6. IOR: R/ 15/1/546.

7. IOR: R/15/1/546, p. 87.

8. See IOR: R/15/2/1239.

9. C. G. Prior to O. K. Caroe, 20 August 1941,10R: L/P&S/12/3943.

10. IOR: L/P&S/12/3943, p. 193.

11. IOR: R/15/2/804, Tom Hickinbotham to Geoffrey Prior, 28 February 1944.

12. Ibid.

13. National Archives, Intelligence Report 109 44, Alusnob, Basra, 11 August 1944, W. M. Benkart, NND 785060, Declassified 7/30/85.

14. On the experience of going to AUB a writer commented: '. . . [some] sent their sons to the junior school of the American University of Beirut before going on to the senior establishment. It was a long journey by steamer to Basra, then train to Baghad, then the desert by train to Damascus and the final stage over mountain ranges. Yet it is an experience shared by almost the whole of the ruling generation of education Arabs in the Gulf today and has something of the power and pervasiveness of the old boy network of the English Public Schools. Men now in their late fifties and sixties who are wealthy and respected members of the educated bourgeoisie as opposed to the ruling families with bedouin affinities and political training at the hands of British advisers made the journey.' Molly Izzard, The Calf A rabia 's Western A pproaches, John Murray, 1979, p. 193.

15. There were American missionary schools in the Gulf itself, at Kuwait and Bahrain, but they were small and not patronized by the Arabs.

16. IOR: R/15/2/210, C. A. F. Dundas, 'Proposed Gulf College', p. 35.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., 36.

20. A reminder of the way in which English Public Schools got the lion's share of funding are the 'conscience' schools that were started when complaints about the class pretensions of the Public Schools grew too loud. In Harrow, 'Local people complained so bitterly at being deprived of their legacy that in 1874 the Governors felt obliged to found the Lower School of John Lyon at the bottom of the hill to carry out their founder's Intentions.' Similarly, at Dulwich, Alleyn's School '... is a testament to the pricked consciences of the early Victorian Governors. As fee-paying scholars took up more of their 'charity', they were criticized for neglecting the local poor again, as happened at Harrow and Highgate.'Jenkins, 7'he Com panion Guid e to Outer Lond on, Collins, 1981, pp. 159, 50. See Eastwood, Queen Elizabeth's: '. . . the school had just acquired a new dignity. In March, 1932, it was raised to the status of a Public School and the Headmaster obtained the right to attend the Headmasters' Conference.', p. 114. Can one say that an ancient grammar school dating to 1567, acquired 'new dignity' and was braised' in status by joining the HMC? A telling comment.

21. IOR:R/15/2/210, C. A. F, Dundas, 'Proposed Gulf College', 36.

22. Ibid., 38.

23. Ibid., Memorandum', 8

24. Ibid., C. G. Prior to C. A. F. Dundas, 22 February 1941, 4.

25. Ibid ., 40.

26. Freya Stark reported in 1945 that education in Iraq was losing its anti-British bias but that Faisal was having difficulty getting teachers: 'The text books, poisonously inimical to Britain at that time, are still in use: but it is tardily dawning on our Ministers that a friendly nation is incompatible with education based on slander and now that Iraq is no longer under a British mandate the anti-British text books may be superseded ... Victoria College in Egypt, run on English Public School lines, still draws Iraqi boys; an institution of the same kind, the King Faisal College, is now founded, though not yet working satisfactorily, near Baghdad. It is hampered chiefly by the great difficulty of finding enough British teachers to start it on its way.' Stork, East is West, 212.

27. IOR: R/15/2/210. 'Draft Agreement', 42.

28. Ibid., 42-3.

29. Ibid., 57.

30. Ibid., C. G. Prior to H. Weightman, I May 1941, 33.

31. Ibid., Sir Kinahan Cornwallis to Sir Maurice Peterson, Sir Harold McMichael, Sir Miles Lampson, and Sir Hathron Hall, 4 March 1942.

32. Ibid., Sir David Monteath to Sir Maurice Peterson, 9June 1942, p. 103.

33. Tom Hickinbotham to Geoffrey Prior, 18 February 1945, 10R: R/15/2/838.
 

Published in: Education Research And Perspectives, The University of Western Australia, Vol. 14, No. 2, December 1987, Autralia, 1987

Contact: The University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia, 6009