The Ivoirian education system is an adaptation of the French
system, which was introduced at the end of the nineteenth
century to train clerks and interpreters to help administer the
colony. The education system was gradually expanded to train
teachers, farmers, and artisans, but by 1940, only 200 Africans
had been admitted to primary schools. In 1945 the nation had
only four university graduates, despite an official policy,
described as "assimilationist," aimed at creating a political
elite that would identify with France and French culture. The
education system was made into a department of the French
national system under the jurisdiction of the minister for
education in Paris in the last decade of colonial rule, but by
limiting access to a tiny minority of Africans, it generally
failed to supplant Ivoirian values with French ones. Education
assumed much greater importance as independence approached,
leading some village elders to establish and support village
schools. Primary-school enrollments increased