Aga Khan’s big contribution to education

In 1908, the British Colonial Government appointed Prof Nelson Fraser as an education adviser for East Africa. His first task was to review the prevailing socio-economic and cultural environment and recommend appropriate learning programmes for the Protectorate.

Prof Fraser had been the principal of Training College at Bombay University, India, and was therefore considered knowledgeable on education for the colonies.

Accordingly, Prof Fraser published a report in 1909 whose primary recommendation was that the colonial administration should establish different schools for Europeans, Asians and Africans. Essentially, the Fraser Report, as it became popularly known, established a discriminatory education system based on race. In its implementation, more resources were allocated to the European schools, followed by the Asian schools. African schools were third-tier, underfunded, understaffed, and offered low-quality education.

Initially, education had been introduced in East Africa by the Christian missionaries who arrived on our shores in the early 19th century and whose mission was to evangelise. Education; basically reading, writing and arithmetic (what was called three Rs) was conceptualised with that philosophy in mind. While the curriculum offered in European and Asian schools was geared toward producing intellectual citizens, that for Africans was intended to equip them with psychomotor skills and turn them into menial labourers in the service of the colonial administration.

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It is against this background that the Ismaili community founded the first multiracial educational centre in Mombasa in 1918, precisely to dismantle an education system that segregated learners based on their skin colour. This became the present-day Aga Khan Primary School in Kizingo, Mombasa. Earlier, across the Zanzibar Islands, Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan III had established girls’ schools principally to promote gender education.

The entry of the Ismaili community and principally His Highness the Aga Khan changed the trajectory of education in East Africa and the rest of the continent. Upon ascending to the Imam of the Ismaili Muslims in 1957, His Highness the Aga Khan undertook to promote education in Africa and other parts of the world as a tool for social transformation and realisation of civil liberties.

His vision for education converged with that of the Africans fighting for political liberation from the colonial domination, and whose focus, among others, was to equip Africans with cognitive skills and other competencies to enable them to participate in governance and decision-making and take charge of their destiny. For their part, Africans protested the poor quality of education offered to their children and this sparked a movement for the establishment of Afro-centric schools, which led to establishment of the K-schools – the present day Kakamega, Kagumo, Kisii and Kangaru schools.

It is not lost that as part of His Highness’s contribution to the African liberation struggle in Kenya was the establishment of a newspaper, Taifa Leo in 1959 and later Daily Nation in 1960, to offer a voice for the African freedom fighters. Indeed, quality and liberating education was instrumental in that crusade.

Soon after Kenya attained independence in 1963, the new government established an education commission led by the late Prof Simeon Ominde, which delivered its report in 1964. One of the major outcomes of the Ominde Commission was the elimination of discrimination in education based on race or religion and the creation of a unified education system that became the country’s standard practice to date. With this, His Highness’s vision of a non-racial education came to pass.

Marginalised communities

Under the auspices of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) social sector that focuses on education, health, culture, and civil society, His Highness founded and supported multiple education programmes through direct service delivery or facilitation of education providers. The Aga Khan Education Services (AKES) runs schools and higher education learning institutions across many countries, including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In Kenya, AKES runs five schools in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Eldoret, offering both national and international curriculum. Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), a civil society organisation, supports education programmes across East Africa with a particular focus on early childhood and girls’ education, especially for those in marginalised communities.

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In 1983, the Aga Khan fraternity entered into university education and established the first campus in Pakistan. It has since expanded to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom, specialising in health sciences, education, media and communications, Muslim civilisation, intercultural studies among others. Significantly, the university and campuses have aligned the programmes along the sectors such as health, education and media that His Highness Khan had deep interest in. The Aga Khan University in Nairobi, for example, focuses on health sciences and media studies, two areas that His Highness the Aga Khan has invested in — Aga Khan hospitals and the Nation Media Group. The objective is to create a pipeline of professionals to serve in those fields.

In one of his endearing statements, His Highness remarked that university education should aim to expand "the frontiers of scientific and humanistic knowledge, radiate intelligence and confidence, promote research, and create flourishing economies and progressive legal and political systems".

Looking at his contribution to higher education, that vision remains true and serves as a guiding light into the future.

When the history of education of East Africa is finally documented, His Highness the Aga Khan will certainly earn the pride of place.

David Aduda is a Consulting Editor and Education Specialist. [email protected].com