Nikolas Glover

In 1962 Sweden was said to be the country with the most extensive correspondence education enrolment per capita in the world. This was explained with reference to its sparse and widespread population with a high level of literacy, an efficient publishing industry and reliable postal services. None of these conditions existed in Tanganyika (renamed Tanzania in 1964), yet one of Sweden’s earliest forays into development co-operation focused precisely on expanding correspondence education in the former British colony. This somewhat counterintuitive historical encounter between the Nordics and East Africa was the result of the active role played by Swedes in international organisations, where they encountered the agenda of postcolonial states and sought to offer solutions based on their personal experiences of mass correspondence education back home in Sweden. However, the obvious difficulties of adapting that experience meant that they were quite ambivalent towards the ideal of “exporting” a successful Nordic or Swedish “model” to postcolonial Africa.