Eshiwani, George S. (1993) Education in Kenya since independence Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers
p. 15: “Neither the missionaries not the colonial administration made any real attempt to link African education to African problems and the African cultural heritage. Initially, the missionaries were only interested in making converts and regarded African culture as an obstacle to Christianity. The colonial administration wanted Kenya to become self-sufficient [KB Note – here read ‘self-sufficient’ as a gloss for ‘not a burden on the British metropole economy – colonies support the homeland, not vice versa] as quickly as possible and tended to act as if it agreed with the settlers that this could best be achieved if the Africans were educated to form a largely laboring and clerical class. The government’s policy of ‘trusteeship’ and ‘indirect rule’ seemed in accord with the settlers’ paternalistic attitude towards the Africans, and both settlers and officials were in agreement with the policy of rapid advance for the European and gradual advance for the African in education.”
Eshiwani points out the irony-over-time that is shown in how Kenyans in the early colonial period fought against a system of education that was vocational and technical in focus because they saw it as shepherding them to second-class lives in a colonial environment, while in the post-colonial world, Kenyan educational planners see a need to train students vocationally and technically to better serve the needs of the country. Same formula, just different people in charge.
African Schools Movement – begun in Kenya as early as1910 in Nyanza, spreading to Central Province by the 1920s (Harry Thuku, et al helping out with this). 1939 – Githunguri Teachers College founded – to train Kenyan (Kikuyu, and other ethnicities) teachers to teach at African schools. Githunguri would be closed by colonial authorities in 1952 (Emergency troubles, don’t you know), but the ASM wasn’t slowed – with as many as 400 schools open in 1952.
1924 – Phelps-Stokes Commission – recommends practical education for African communities;
1925 – Advisory Committee for Education in Tropical Africa – recommended ‘necessary skills training’
1949 – Beecher Commission – owing to declining African moral standards, sought to maintain Christian principles and overt (Euro-) moral aspect to formal education.
1952 – Binns Commission – ignored African cultural goals completely, sough to further invest schooling efforts in moral education and practical (agricultura, for example) education. Sought to keep Africans poor and rural.
1963 – Ominde Report – immediately post-independence, established with the focus to expand manpower capacity and fight poverty. It dealt with cultural, social, religious, utilitarian, and other needs in coming up with its nine objectives (page 26):
OBJECTIVES OF THE OMINDE COMMISSION
(1) education as a function of Kenya must foster a sense of nationhood and promote national unity;
(2) it must serve the people of Kenya and the needs of Kenya without discrimination;
(3) the public schools are an instrument of the secular state in which no religion is privileged but they must respect the religious convictions of all people;
(4) the Kenyan schools must respect the cultural traditions of the peoples of Kenya, both as expressed in social institutions and relationships;
(5) an excessively competitive spirit in our schools is incompatible with our traditional beliefs and must be restrained. Every young person coming from schools must be made to realize that he has a valuable part to play in the national life;
(6) education must be regarded and used as an instrument for the conscious change of attitudes and relationships, preparing children for those changes of outlook required by modern methods of productive organization. At the same time, foster respect for the human personality;
(7) it should subserve the needs of national development;
(8) it must promote social equality and remove divisions of race, tribe, and religion;
(9) an outcome of our educational provision to all levels must be adaptability to change.
1976 – Gachathi Report – looked at restructuring the educational system, in light of the Ominde Commission report, and the subsequent 12 years of post-colonial experience. From page 28:
OBJECTIVES OF THE GACHATHI COMMISSION
(1) foster national unity; remove social and regional inequalities; create a national consciousness; be adaptable; be relevant to the real-life situation of the Kenya environment;
(2) foster cooperative effort and responsibility through self-help projects; make each member of society to contribute according to his ability;
(3) foster social values by fostering traditional practices that are conducive to national unity;
(4) promote cultural values by fostering that are conducive to national unity;
(5) inculcate economic values (attitudes to work and incentives) among the youths; eradicate negative attitudes towards work, specially manual work.
As have other writers, Eshiwani describes the 1981 Mackay Report (of the Presidential Working Party on the Second National University in Kenya) as the point of genesis of the 8-4-4 system, a move away from the old British model of primary, lower secondary (‘O levels’), upper secondary (‘A levels’), and higher education.
Eshiwani reiterates a good deal of the history – as well as the late 1980s statistical data – on higher education development in Kenya – pages 69-95 – with a good number of those pages focusing on technical institutes and training colleges. He mentions the University Acts that created various institutions, lists the private colleges and universities with academic offerings at these also listed (potentially helpful). But . . .
Look toward this latter stuff only on an as-needed basis, as it is better presented elsewhere.
