Education in Kenya During its Colonial Period

Education in Kenya during its colonization was racially stratified, with varying curricula and facilities for Europeans, Asians and Africans. Sentiment in the colony was strongly in favor of such segregation. For example, Richard Frost stated in Race Against Time that Europeans in Kenya were "almost unanimously opposed to any infiltration of non-Europeans into European schools" (1978). Thus, up until Kenya gained its independence in 1963 and subsequently discarded the British system in the 1980s, educational opportunities for students in Kenya was determined almost entirely by race (KenyaWeb, 2002).

Martin Carnoy (1974) and Donald Schilling (1984) have argued that the education system as applied to black Kenyans was really a means to control Africans and inculcate within them "a sense of inferiority" that would keep them permanently in a secondary position (Natsoulas, 1998). Christian missionaries established the first formal schooling program for native Kenyans. In addition, by 1924, ninety percent of all schools in tropical Africa were mission schools (Knighton, 2002). Thus, one of the primary goals of schools for Africans in Kenya ha

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