History of Education in Kenya: Pre-Colonial Period to date (adapted from

softkenya.com)

History of Education in Kenya Before Independence

Before the coming of the Europeans, societies in Kenya had
traditional systems of education whose primary objective was to
train individuals to fit into their societies as useful members. This
type of education provided skills and knowledge, and was a
socializing agent that transmitted cultural values from one
generation to another.
However, Christian missionaries introduced Western education in
Kenya, as we know it today, by the 19th century when the first
mission school was established in 1846 at Rabai, near Mombasa.
Early missionary education in the country was linked to conversion
of Africans to Christianity and little progress was made to establish
formal schools in land until the beginning of the 20th century when
the colonial administration took over control of African education
from the missionaries.
Whereas the missionaries wanted to convert Africans to Christianity,
the colonial administration wanted Africans trained in elementary
practical skills in agriculture, carpentry, masonry and other allied
crafts so that they could provide cheap labour to the colonial
government and to the European settler community. In essence, the
goal of education in Kenya before independence was to produce a
semi-educated labour force to develop the colonys economy and
provide chiefs and headmen to help in administration.
But the Africans resented and questioned an education system that
segregated them from acquiring the academic type of education,
similar to one that was offered to the European and the Asian
communities. Close to independence, the colonial government

retained a racial separate development in education that limited

Africans from access to higher education.
Amid efforts to redress stratification of colonial education that
favoured Europeans and Asians, the Africans set up their own
independent schools that incorporated African cultural values into
Christianity.
Although independent schools mushroomed in the country as early
as 1910, they reached a climax in 1939 with the establishment of
Githunguri Teachers College, Whose most well-known principal was
Peter Mbiyu Koinange, the son of the Senior Chief Koinange wa
Mbiyu of Kiambu.
The college was closed in 1952 by the Government at the advent of
the declaration of the state of emergency since it was seen as a hot
bedfor the Mau Mau insurgency. Mbiyu was later to become a
Minister of State in the first Kenyatta Cabinet in 1963.
But the impact of the independent school movement was great as it
demonstrated the Africansdissatisfaction with the colonial education
and the need for reforms in the sector.
The schools also displayed the capacity and ability of Africans to
organize themselves and provide education for their children. But
more important, independent schools served as a catalyst for the
colonial administration to continuously change educational policies
to keep pace with demand for expansion of education.
Unfortunately, colonial educational policies continued to favour the
European community in financing, curriculum structure and
development. At independence, the colonial education was still
divisive, With Europeans getting priority, closely followed by Asians,
while the Africans stayed at the bottom of the colonial educational
ladder.

History of Education in Kenya Independence

But one thing was certain that with achievement of independence,

reforms in education were to become key planks of the new
government policies. The issue is that for more than half a century,
the demand for better education for all had taken root in the country.
However, in the 50 years of independence the Government has
invested heavily in all sectors of education. Soon after
independence, the new government had to deal with the problems
of the three systems of education, curriculum reforms, widening
access to education at all levels and the demands for free and
universal primary education.
To address some of those issues,the Government abolished the
racial school systems and integrated them into a unitary national
system of education.
The Government discarded the eight year primary education cycle
for Africans that was punctuated with stiff examinations and adopted
a seven-year continuous primary education as in the former
European and Asian schools.
Consequently, the number of pupils proceeding to sit the Kenya
Primary Education (KPE) examination increased rapidly from
62,000 in 1963 to 133,000 in 1966.

History of Education in Kenya Consolidation of Independence Gains

The main achievement in the second decade of Independence was
to exponentially expand primary education and to consolidate past
achievements in secondary and university education.
Plans were made to revise the curricula, upgrading of educational
standards and orientation of training to manpower needs at higher
levels.
It is during the decade that the rst and the second free primary
education initiatives were launched. The ground work for
introduction of the 8-4-4 system of education was also laid in the

final years of the second decade of independence, while impressive

gains were made in adult education.
It was during this period that the curriculum was diversied to
include pre-vocational subjects. The result was the appointment in
1975 of the National Committee on Educational Objectives and
Policies, under the chairmanship of Peter. J. Gachathi, whose report
was published in 1976.
In 1981, the Government also appointed the Presidential Working
Party on Establishment of the Second University in Kenya. The
team, under Canadian legal scholar Dr Colin B. Mackay, was to
investigate and report of the feasibility of establishing a second
university in Kenya with emphasis on technical courses.
However, the decade encountered many challenges that ranged
from secondary school and university student riots, clamour for
academic freedom among university lecturers and students. Free
primary education encountered many challenges as parents and
other stakeholders called for its full implementation in the primary
education cycle.
The most outstanding matter in education during the second decade
of independence was the provision of free primary education.
The need for more education acquired a new momentum when the
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(Unesco) organized the Addis Ababa Conference of African States
of the Development of Education in Africa in 1961.
Kenya was one of the 39 African countries represented by a
delegation headed by Education PS W.D Gregg. Daniel arap Moi,
who was the Education Parliamentary Secretary, was in the fourman delegation. He was to play a major role in future development
of education in Kenya.
Standard One intake shot from below 380,000 in 1973 to more than
950,000 in 1983, a rise of more than 150 per cent. Those high
enrolment rates indicated that although tuition fee was modest in

primary schooling, it had been barrier to access to education for

many children from low-income families.
It is estimated that Standard One gross enrollment ratio for 1974
jumped from 93 per cent to 221 per cent, which was radically
exceptional and unsustainable without heavy injection of funds and
facilities.
The crux of the matter was that numbers were inated by over- age
pupils, taking advantage of the abolition of school fees to embark on
delayed schooling. Adolescents sat among six and seven-year old
children in overcrowded Standard One classrooms.

History of Education in Kenya: 1993-2003

During the first two decades of independence, the Kenyan state was
characterised generally by uncontrolled expansion of formal
education at all levels. During that period, the Government
introduced two regimes of free primary education. The Government
had reacted to public demands made on education and supported
local harambee initiatives. This was a period that the Government
showed commitment to providing educational opportunities to all
children and in perspective the state was able to expand schooling
and to promote its legitimacy as being a modern and
compassionate nation.
However, from thereafter, the Governments legitimacy was eroded
by a long period of economic stagnation and unemployment that
extended up to the fourth decade of independence. Besides, in the
early years of Moi presidency, the original emphasis on harambee
as a grass root movement took a more direct political tone, when
the line became blurred between genuine fundraising activities to
boost education and campaigns by politicians to advance their
chances to enter parliament. By 1993, harambee fatigue had set in
and fundraising barazas had declined through out the country.
Nevertheless, economic decline led to a severe shortage of
resources to the extent that the Government could no longer afford

to subsidise the coast of secondary schooling for students in public

secondary schools. The result was erosion of quality of education in
secondary schools as government called for greater cost-sharing in
education. Subsequently, school committees such as Boards of
Governors (BoG) and Parents and Teachers Associations (PTAs)
were empowered to collect school fees and often disregarded
minimum school fees structure from the Ministry of Education.
As a result some of the better public schools became exclusive
province of students whose parents who could afford to pay high
fess. Most of students from poor economic households who could
not afford the fees in those schools had to seek placement in lower
quality schools.In a nutshell, the fourth decade of independence
was characterized by serious distortions in education than any other
period since independence. According to educational researchers at
the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, high
dropout rates and repetition rates reversed the gains that had been
achieved in previous years.
There are indicators that in the larger period of the fourth decade
the Government was unable to develop educational policies to
improve quality or combat declines in enrolment rates, dropout-rates
and repletion rates. However, it was during this period that gender
gap in enrolment levels narrowed considerably. It was also during
this period that private participation in primary education increased
to sizeable levels.
But most significant, it is during this period that the Government
introduced the Third Free Primary Education Initiative in 2003.
Consequently, enrolment rose by 17.6 percent from 6.1 million in
2002 to 7.2 million in 2003. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) rose
from 92 percent to 104 per cent of the primary school going
population.

History of Education in Kenya The earliest schools in Kenya

1.
2.
3.

Nairobi European School

School at Rabai near Mombasa established 1846
Nairobi School established 1902.

4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.

Friends School Kaimosi, now Kaimosi Friends Primary School, established 1903
Maseno School, established in 1906
Government Indian School or The Duke of Gloucester School, now Jamhuri High School, established 1906
Tumutumu Mission School, now Tumutumu Girls High School established in 1908.
European Girls School, now Kenya High School established 1908.
Thogoto School, now Thogoto Teachers Training College established 1910.
Kaimosi Girls High School, established 1920
Allidina Visram High School, Mombasa established 1921
Kaimosi Boys High School, established 1921
Kenton College, established 1924 Kijabi 1935 Kileleshwa
Mangu High School, established 1925.
Alliance School, now Alliance High School (Kenya) established in 1926.
St. Marys School Yala, established in 1927.
Highlands High School, now Moi Girls High School Eldoret established in 1928.
Kisii School, established in 1932