Book Description

This book fills a gap by providing a much-needed history of Catholic missionary education in Zambia. It traces the contribution of the Catholic Church's contribution to the development of education in Zambia over more than a century, providing more widely, an overview of Zambia's educational history, and insights into the development of the country's political history. It articulates the perspectives of missionaries and officials of education departments, of Zambian students, lecturers and administrators. The study further vividly illustrates how the mission school generated creative tension between modernity and education, and Christian conversion; and analyses the psychological impacts of religious conversion and how these have been played out in Zambia. It argues that in the circumstances, Catholic schools have been instruments of liberation in Zambia, but duly recognises the ambiguities of modernisation, and the need to respect and acknowledge the riches of local tradition.