Big dreams on education still a mirage, 60 years on
Pupils in Baringo County head to fetch water. We have reviewed our curriculum several times and had two major highly politicised reforms. However, the nine objectives of education remain elusive.
Before independence, education in Kenya was offered by the government and religious groups which set up and ran schools. These were further divided into three broad types of schools: European schools, Asian schools and African schools.
There were also schools for Goans and Arabs. This segregation was based on government policy at the time, which defined the role of each “race” in the economy. Each race sat different national exams. The colonial government established formal education for African children after World War 1.
Churches were the original providers of education for African children. Their stated purpose was to “civilise and convert the African”. They also set up teacher training college-type institutions whose graduates went back to their villages as “evangelists” to “break the yoke of primitivity and usher in civilisation”.
In government schools, African children paid school fees, but European children were exempt. It is actually only Africans who paid taxes at the time.
Records show that as of 1938, the government was spending four shillings and three cents per African school child in Kenya, five pounds per Indian child and 27 pounds and 12 shillings per European child. About 12 per cent of the European pupils had free education, while 51.7 per cent went partly free. If the Africans could not pay school fees, their children were expelled from school.
When the first cohort of African children sat their primary school exam, instead of admitting them into existing European or Asian secondary schools, a whole new “African” system of secondary schools was created from 1926 onwards, on a much lower level of capitalisation and with fewer amenities. One such school was what is now known as Kagumo High School.
Racial stratification
By 1939, there were only four mission-sponsored secondary schools and no government African secondary schools in Kenya. In addition to racial stratification, there was also class stratification. For example, Maseno School, set up in 1906 by the Church Missionary Society, exclusively educated the children of African chiefs. The doors opened to Africans were few and far between.
These three systems ran independently until 1960 when integration began to occur. Kenya High, then known as Kenya European Girls' High School, admitted its first African student, one Anne Mithamo in 1961. Nairobi School welcomed its first African and Asian children in 1962.
Segregation was declared illegal on June 1, 1963, and the Kenyanisation of schools began in earnest after 1965 when the government set out nine objectives for education in Kenya. These included fostering a sense of nationhood and promoting national unity and serving all Kenyans without discrimination.
Schools were identified as instruments of the secular state where all religions were equal and all religious convictions respected. The fourth objective stated that schools must respect the cultural traditions of the people of Kenya. Perhaps speaking to the current dilemma of rote learning and grades mania, our founding fathers warned against the excessive competition in school.
The independence government regarded education as an instrument for social, economic and cultural change.
The eighth objective was to promote social equality and remove divisions of race, tribe and religion. Lastly, education at all levels was geared towards catalysing adaptability to change.
Six decades later, the colour bar no longer exists and our literacy level stands at 82 per cent. We have reviewed our curriculum several times and had two major highly politicised reforms. However, the nine objectives of education remain elusive. Perhaps we will get it right in the next 60 years.
Ms Mwangi works in the education sector;[email protected]
