Clamouring for Education: the struggle in Colonial Kenya
“He seemed to me like a young God with his smart clothes and shoes, his watch and beautiful bicycle. I worshipped in particular his bicycle that day and I decided that I must somehow get one for myself. As he talked with us it seemed to me that the secret of his riches came from his education, his knowledge of reading and writing and that it was essential for me to obtain this power” J.M. Kariuki
“That the desire for education was genuine was demonstrated after the end of the war when the Africans, particularly the Kikuyu, began to clamor for education as never before. As Harry Leakey of the CMS put it, the young Kikuyu are just crying for education, education, education, education. And if we can’t give it to them…. they mean to get it otherwise’” (Wamagatta, 2008, p. 6)
Wamagatta, E. (2008). Changes of Government Policies Towards Mission Education in Colonial Kenya and Their Effects on the Missions: The Case of the Gospel Missionary Society, Journal of Religion in Africa, 38(1) 3-26
“The idea that the East African native was liable to adolescent breakdown under the ‘impact of civilisation’ owing to an under-equipped frontal brain was developed in an article in 1936. Gordon found that of his adolescent African patients at Mathari about whom reliable information could be obtained, all were educated; he took this as evidence of the danger of exerting too much intellectual pressure on a deficient prefrontal brain. ‘I prefer to think of it as a series of pressures; pressure of the developed upon the undeveloped mind….all forming an unprecedented experience for the Native brain involving inevitable adjustment or inevitable catastrophe’” (Campbell, 2007, p. 170)
“In 1956, Tom Mboya, a Kenyan African labor leader, traveled to the United States and met Americans involved in the civil rights movement who were committed to the liberation struggle in Africa. Mboya was looking for funds to airlift Kenyan students who had received scholarships to American universities. The African American Students Foundation, Jackie Robinson, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, Dr. Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy worked with the State and foundations to implement Mboya’s plan. Over 750 African students were airlifted to study in the United States (http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/JFK-and-the-Student-Airlift.aspx)
“To make sure they benefitted from formal education, Africans established Independent schools, which were for Africans and run by Africans. These schools offered academic education to Africans and incorporated African culture in Christianity…..Independent schools generally were opposed and criticized by the Europeans, the African schools movement grew stronger and stronger, so by the time of the Emergency in 1952, there were about four hundred Independent schools” (Eshiwani, 1993, pp. 17-18)
Campbell, Chloe. (2007). Race & Empire: Eugenics in Colonial Kenya. Vancouver: UBC Press
Eshiwani, G. ( 1993). Education in Kenya Since Independence. Nairobi: East African EducationalPublishers Ltd
