Gatundu South MP Gabriel Kagombe recently suggested that every Kenyan child should strictly go to school in their localities. He revisited the divisive narrative of one-man-one-shilling-one-vote. He tied this narrative with the quality schools, bursaries and the ongoing Opposition-led demonstrations.
The politician suggested that children in Kiambu were being denied a chance to go to good schools because those institutions were already full with learners from other counties. It is important to put things into perspective to avoid creating divisions in key sectors such as education. The history of western-style school system began in Kenya with the arrival of the Christian missionaries and their colonial cousins.
The missionaries and the colonialists chose to be headquartered around Mt Kenya, the Aberdare Ranges and parts of the Rift Valley because of the fair climate which mimicked their own, back home in Europe. When missionary work and colonial infrastructure commenced, it all had to start around these areas the whites settled.
Africans were evangelised and converted to Christianity and subsequently enrolled in the schools built by the missionaries. These schools were built mainly with funds from the mother-churches back home in Europe. This explains why all the oldest schools in Kenya were owned and run by specific Christian formations.
For instance, Alliance Boys and Alliance Girls High schools were established by the Alliance of Protestant Churches - The Church of Scotland Mission, Church of the Province of Kenya, African Inland Church, the Friends Church and Methodist. Meanwhile, Maseno School and Maranda were properties of the Anglican Church. Similarly, Mangu Boys, Kagumo Boys, Nkubu Boys and St Mary's Yala were properties of the Catholic Church. Tumu Tumu Girls and Chogoria Girls were the properties of the Presbyterian Church. Friends Kamusinga, Friends Kaimosi etc were properties of the Friends Church. Many other schools that came up.
The colonial government later did a catch-up by starting the so-called government schools. Meru school was started by the government in 1956. it became an Independent Government School registered under schedule 1 of Education Act under the sponsorship of the DEB in 1959.
Similarly, Kakamega High School, formerly known as Government African School was founded in 1932 and registered as such. Government schools were funded through taxation imposed (direct and indirect) on the entire colony. At independence, when the colonialists left Kenya, already the educational, medical, agricultural, industrial, commercial and manufacturing infrastructures were in place around Mt Kenya, courtesy of the taxes and forceful auctions from all parts of Kenya.
Therefore, Mr Kagombe's assertions that their grandparents built colonial-era schools in Kiambu, single-handedly, are unfounded. Furthermore, the post-independence government published the Sessional Paper No 10 of 1965, which may have led to discrimination and gross underdevelopment of pastoralists-inhabited parts of the Rift Valley, northern and North - Eastern Kenya. Sessional Paper No 10 of 1965 deliberately pronounced policy to concentrate resources and development projects only in high-potential (read agricultural) areas.
No amount of injustice had been visited upon pastoral communities, to the scale which was pronounced by the Sessional Paper No 10 of 1965. This explains why there are no good schools, hospitals, factories, industries, irrigation and agricultural projects and other amenities in Northern and North-Eastern Kenya!
This deliberate and skewed distribution of resources explains the vast disparities of development in different parts of Kenya. It's therefore very insensitive for any leader to seek to further the marginalisation tactics of the yesteryears.
