The article compares the educational policy trajectories of four societies in the South-west Indian Ocean: Madagascar, Mauritius, Ile de la Reunion and South Africa. The main purpose is to trace the political pathways and differing educational policy trajectories of former colonies of Britain and France. Five metaphors are invoked in this paper to describe the political and economic forces that shape the educational policy trajectories of developing countries. Together they form a conceptual model which provides the basis for comparative analysis of the post-colonial educational policy choices between countries and allows for a more detailed examination of one or a cluster of polices. The methods employed in the research reported here draw on the discipline of comparative history and the resultant trajectories seem to offer a good heuristic device for generating, recording, and graphically illustrating data. (Contains 5 figures.)