African Education and the Rhodesian Employer

Abstract

This paper is propounded in the context that the seemingly bottomless well of African teaching posts in Rhodesia is drying up, and that the employment of Africans generally is becoming a problem of greater concern. It is commonly supposed that the responsibility for the inadequate employment of Africans lies with the European employers and that it is mainly due to racial prejudice. On this basis a gradual improvement in the situation might be expected in the long term as those graduates and others who do find employment slowly prove the worth of Africans, and prejudice perhaps erodes away. Such is the position which a number of us would like to see. Unfortunately for this view, a very different situation has been revealed in a recent investigation into the legal profession, done as part of a larger Rhodesian manpower study by Mr. J. Danckwerts, research fellow of the University’s Department of Economics. His evidence shows that the improvement anticipated above is not an early likelihood in legal work, and that it is not primarily racial prejudice which is responsible for the inability of African law graduates to find suitable employment.