Kenya (African Education)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 15 April 1957.

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Photo of Mr Fred Mulley Mr Fred Mulley , Sheffield Park 12:00, 15 April 1957

I desire to raise some questions concerning African education in Kenya. I should like to begin by thanking the Under-Secretary of State for attending at this late hour to reply to the debate. It may be that in the days to come the Adjournment Motion will often be moved at about this time.

I had the privilege of visiting Kenya in January as a Member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation, and the points which I want to raise arise from that visit. I would make it clear that I do not regard education as the only problem in Kenya; nor do I regard African education as the only educational problem, but it seems to me that African education is one of the highest priorities, if not the first priority, and it may be that we shall have a general debate upon Kenya or East Africa in the near future, when the other matters can be discussed.

Following the Beecher Report the Government of Kenya's policy has been to provide eight years' education, from 7 to 15, for every African child. This is a policy with which no one would quarrel. But we found upon inquiry that if Kenya has to do this from its own foreseeable resources it will not be until 1985 that it can be attained.

Some idea of the problem can be gauged from the estimated cost, which would be at the rate of £22 million per year. Since the total budget of Kenya at present is a little over £30 million this project obviously cannot be carried through from Kenya's own finances. Anyway, it would be impracticable to attempt to provide universal education at the moment, because of the shortage of teacher and other facilities.

In the matter of teachers, I understand that this year it is hoped to train 1,800 in Kenya, against the average rate of 1,200 over the preceding few years. We were told that the minimum need for this programme, is 2,900 teachers, and one of the most urgent needs is £500,000 to provide additional teacher training facilities. In the modest three-year plan that the Government of Kenya have set in the field of African education they need about £2½ million in addition to the £500,000 for teacher training, over three years. The most that they are likely to be able to provide from their own resources is about one-third of this figure, because we must remember that there is other expenditure of high priority, such as that for agriculture, industry and health, in addition to the winding-up of the emergency, which is still very costly.

In Kenya, as in many other parts of Africa, the original education was provided by missions, and these missions still provide a very large amount of such education as there is. But it is provided on the basis of a 100 per cent. Government grant for recurrent expenditure, and it seems to me that in the future the provision of education must increasingly be a wholly Governmental responsibility. In passing, although I do not make much point of this, I think that it is a pity that the Government should today be finding so much money for mission schools over which they have no control.

Another encouraging feature was the great interest in education shown by the African district councils—indeed, the Government need to be careful here, because the district councils' enthusiasm is so great that they may overtax themselves in this direction. Perhaps the clearest impression one brought back was the overwhelming desire on the part of all communities and all Africans for educational opportunities.

All the African children pay school fees. Although, in our terms, the annual fees of 45s. represents not very much, it represents a whole month's wages in rural Kenya. In many cases, men work in the towns or on the European farms only in order to get the school fees. In Nairobi, where, I believe, a pilot scheme of universal African education is to be introduced shortly, the Africans, in addition to paying the fees have also agreed to an extra poll tax to make the necessary money available. Not only do they want education, but are prepared to pay for it, but have not the resources to pay anything like the full cost.

I visited, also, the approved school at Wamumu, which was set up, as the Minister will know, to deal with Mau-Mau delinquent boys. This school, which has a technical basis, is run, one might almost say, on a kind of public school design, and has been so popular that some African youths are committing offences simply to try to get into it. The demand for education has been enormous, particularly among the boys.

Further encouragement has been the growth in recent years in the number of girls attending, and wanting to attend schools. This is particularly important, because in many other fields—like health —progress can be made only if the more educated Africans are available to take responsibility. For example, in Kisu there were in one area over 600,000 Africans, but only one trained midwife. They could not get more because of a lack of educated girls to come forward to train. It is not only a question of proper education, but of the education necessary to extend in other directions, which the Government rightly want.

In addition to this general requirement of eight years at school there is need to extend technical and secondary school education. As against 450,000 African children in primary and intermediate schools, there were only 2,500 in secondary schools, and 2,300 in teacher training colleges. The most disappointing thing is that the majority of those going to school do so for only four years. There seems to be some kind of 11-plus arrangement, but the object of the examination is to decide whether or not they leave after being there for four years, not whether they should go to this school or that.

It may well be that a child may be worse off with four years' education than with none at all. That period is just sufficient to get away from the basic, primal, tribal discipline but not enough to put any constructive alternative in the child's mind. With this enormous problem, something other than the ordinary educational programme will have to be devised; something on the lines that have been successfully tried in West Africa. Kenya is not ready for that kind of experiment, although there is scope and opportunity for more adult education. It is an enormous problem. I hope that 1985 will not be a significant date in Kenya, and that we shall hear from the Under-Secretary that the Government will find the minimum of £3 million necessary for the Government of Kenya's three-year plan.

My other point is the question of a multi-racial secondary school in Kenya. I know that this is an explosive topic. I do not suggest that all or even many of the schools should be on a multi-racial basis. The priority for African education is to provide the eight-year school programme of which I have been talking, but I believe there is also an urgent need for one voluntary multi-racial school. To succeed, it must have a very high academic standard, so that there will be no sacrifice of educational attainment by European and Asian parents. I would like to see such a school established and become the best school in Kenya. There is already a primary school on a voluntary basis that has made good progress. At the other end of the scale is the Royal Technical College, on a multi-racial basis. I was happy to note that hostels are run on a multi-racial basis, very satisfactorily, I understand.

I make this plea not only on purely educational grounds but because I believe that such a school would contribute substantially to better race relations, which have improved a good deal in Kenya in the last two or three years, although no one pretends that there is not a lot to be done. The cost of setting up this voluntary school as an experiment would not be considerable, after the millions of pounds that we have been discussing earlier today. Because of the controversy that this subject arouses in Kenya the British Government should take the bold step of earmarking money for this purpose. I was already of the opinion that there should be a multiracial school before I came back from Kenya, but my opinion that it would be worth while was fortified by a conversation I had with coloured students from the West Indies recently. They said that the multi-racial schools in the West Indies were the biggest factor in developing the multi-racial society that has been established in the West Indies. Such a school in Kenya would be worth a good deal.

When one makes a special case for a special Colony the question is bound to be raised: what about the other Colonies? Such moneys as we are able to provide for the Colonial Empire must, of course, be spread among competing claims, but I think that there is a special case for Kenya because of its special problems. It is, I think, the only remaining Colony in which there is a large European population owning land and regarding themselves as Kenyans. The whole future of the Colony depends on the willingness and ability not only of people in Kenya, but of the British Government, to establish a multi-racial society.

Time is not on our side in this matter. I believe we have a good chance—I put it no higher—of achieving the kind of society in Kenya which will permit Europeans, Asians and Africans to work together. I believe that constructive steps are needed for African education and the establishment of a multi-racial school to contribute to solving the problem we all desire to solve.