CO885-(21-23) — Page 458

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 885

22 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

(H. F. concurs.)

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that if the assessors are to work under non-professional technical supervision they would require three years' training in the school instead of one, and even then would not be sufficiently reliable and experienced to work under any but a trained European

surveyor.

It is not intended by the foregoing remarks to infer that the Survey School or the revenue section should not work under the general control of the Resident, but to emphasize the fact that the section should work under the direct technical control of the Survey Department.

5. Object of the Surrey School. In addition to the provision of mallam assessors for the revenue surveys, the Survey School should provide trained surveyors, and draftsmen, with a view to giving the Survey Department as national a character as possible, by making it one in which racial characteristics, language, and dress are préserved. It is only by training natives of the country for technical work that the exclusion of alien Africans can be achieved.

In fuller detail the objects of the Survey School are as follows:-

(i.) To train mallam assessors for the execution of the land revenue surveys of their respective Provinces or Emirates in Northern Nigeria, begin- ning with that of Kano.

(ii) To train mallam surveyors for general service in the Survey Department and in the revenue sections of their respective Provinces where their assistance in laying down the minor framework and in helping in the supervision of the mallam assessors would be conducive to the efficiency and rate of the work.

(iii) To train mallam draftsmen in drawing and record keeping for general service in the Survey Department, and also for the revenue surveys of their respective Provinces.

(iv.) To provide the topographical branch on its arrival in Northern Nigeria with trained mallam surveyors and draftsmen.

6. Suggested wider aim of Survey School. We are confining the proposals in this memorandum to the profession of surveying, but we submit that it is advisable that the school, so soon as it is in thorough working order, should be expanded to enable it to provide surveyors and draftsmen (the latter especially) for other Govern- ment Departments.

The Public Works, Railway, and Marine are in constant need of both good mallam surveyors and draftsmen. Under existing conditions these departments either train their own men or import them. Either system is bad. In the former there is lack of supervision, owing to the want of a European whose special work is instruction, with the result that slipshod methods are acquired by the apprentices. The system of importing is also bad, for, though a good man may be obtained occasionally, the best men do not, as a rule, leave their own country. Hence the men obtained are generally below the average in technical skill and very often in moral character. The latter fact is of great importance, for the presence in the Protec- torate of the wrong stamp of foreign native cannot but have an injurious and deteriorating effect on the younger generation.

This fact alone, and putting aside the value of systematically educated mallamai, leads us to urge the extension of the school in the near future. Given a second European instructor, there would be no practical difficulties in the formation of special classes for engineering and architectural drafting, railway surveys, and hydrographic surveys.

7. Source of supply and preliminary education of pupils for the Survey School. ---A native would pass through the following processes before becoming a Survey School pupil, and eventually a mallam assessor or surveyor :—

(a) He would pass through a course of general education in the Nassarawa

school under the Director of Education.

(8) During this period he would, if considered capable, be selected by the Director of Education for training in taki measurements, and would, for a certain number of hours a week, join a taki class. In this class he would still be under the Director of Education.

(c) On completion of his education he would be transferred by the Director of Education to the taki staff of the Resident of his Province, where, as a taki assessor, he would remain for at least one year.

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(d) He would then, if considered suitable, be transferred by the Resident to the Survey School and would come under the Survey Department.

(e) He would remain for about one year in the junior class of the Survey School. At the end of that period he would be appointed a mallam assessor or be selected for further training as a surveyor or drafts-

man.

(f) If appointed a mallam assessor, he would be transferred to the revenue survey section of his province, where he would remain, unless, at the end of at least one year's service as a mailam assessor, he showed suffi. cient promise to warrant his re-transfer to the Survey School for training as a surveyor.

clusses in

(g) If selected at the end of period (e) for training as a surveyor or draftsman, (II. E. adds

he would successively pass through the middle and senior classes of evening the Survey School, and eventually be transferred to the revenue survey general section of his province or to the general Survey Department of education.) Northern Nigeria.

(h) During the period (b), he might, if of exceptional survey promise, be

transferred direct to the Survey School by the Director of Education.

8. Class of native.-The natives selected should be of good class, in view of the desirability already mentioned of imparting a national character to the survey and of employing a high class of man in the important work connected with assess-

ment.

9. Fees and quarters.-The procedure with regard to fees and quarters at present obtaining in the Nassarawa School is as follows:-

"Natives for the school arrive with a letter from the Resident of their province and are sent by the Director of Education to the Emir of Kano, who allots them quarters in the town. Their subsistence is sent by their respective Residents direct to the Director of Education, who, at the end of each month, pays them the whole sum. Within the following week each pupil pays his school fees for the month, viz., 2s. education, and 6d. medical.'

In paragraph 17 we make certain recommendations for the

pay of If these are approved, it will only be necessary for the survey instructor to recover survey pupils. the fees mentioned above from the pay of the pupils, and to make similar arrange- ments for their quarters; the subsistence from the Residents can be discontinued.

10. Surrey School separate from the Nassarawa School.—The proposals con- (H. E. tained in the foregoing paragraphs involve the formation of a survey school distinct concurs.) from the Nassarawa School, and this course we recommend, as we submit that it possesses the following advantages:

(i.) All possible causes for friction between the survey and general instructional staff are removed.

(ii.) The survey instructor gains influence by having sole control of his

pupils.

(iii.) The survey pupils can be trained under the same technical super- vision as that under which they will continue to work in the future (para- graph 4).

(iv.) No extra expenditure is involved, for, were the schools combined, the same amount of extra accommodation, the same number of instructors, and the same expenditure on instruments would be required.

(v.) If the suggestion made in the next paragraph is approved, economy

in the salary of the revenue surveyor, and also in combining the offices of the school and revenue section can be effected, an object which could not be attained if both belonged to different departments.

11. Surrey School instructional staff.—(a) We submit that it would be con- venient and economical if the survey instructor could temporarily take charge of the Kano revenue section (excluding the Resident's taki staff) for the first two years of the school's existence. It will be possible for him to do this if a European revenue surveyor is appointed to the Kano section, as the framework of the revenue survey is already laid in the sub-districts immediately around the school. The advantages gained would be:-

Advantage I-That the post of revenue surveyor could at first be filled by a less highly paid civilian than would be necessary if a fully trained and experienced man

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