HC Deb 09 December 1958 vol 597 cc30-1W
87. Mr. J. Johnson

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement upon the Conference on Islami Education held in Dar-es-Salaam in late November, attended by delegates from the Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Nyasaland and the territories of Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

The Conference was attended by members of Education Departments of the four East African territories and Aden, and by Muslim representatives and observers from Nyasaland, Northern Nigeria, Somaliland, as well as from Pakistan, the Sudan and Somalia. It accepted in principle the main recommendations of the report on Muslim education prepared by Mr. V. L. Griffiths and Professor R. B. Serjeant, who with an Assistant Educational Adviser from the Colonial Office were present in an advisory capacity.

The recommendations include proposals for the establishment in Zanzibar of a Muslim Institute for the teaching of religion, history and Arabic to Muslim students, and for the formation of a Book Production Unit to prepare a series of books for the teaching of Arabic to childen whose mother tongue is not Arabic. The views of the Conference will be brought to the attention of East African Governments by the Conference Chairman, who was the Administrator of the East Africa High Commission.

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