Local Pressures on Educational Plans in Colonial Kenya: Post-Second World War Activity among the Southern Abaluyia

Abstract

African educational initiatives among the Southern Abaluyia illustrate the dynamic process by which schooling spread in colonial Kenya and explain the persistence of different rates of school growth among neighboring communities at a very local level. In African educational studies one feature commonly cited is that after the Second World War an insatiable desire for schooling among Africans pushed colonial powers to permit the expansion of schools far in excess of official desires.' In most instances individual African leaders or tribal unions promoted self-help programs to improve local educational facilities outside the guidelines laid down in government development plans. Their intention was to have their own communities capture a fair share of the occupational opportunities that were expanding for Africans as colonialism was winding down. These local pressures for more schooling existed among the Southern Abaluyia in western Kenya where school growth depended heavily on Southern Abaluyia involvement in the development process. Also, the nature of their involvement permitted different rates of school growth to persist between neighboring communities after the Second World War despite official efforts to spread opportunities for schooling more evenly. One major implication is that at independence African national governments such as in Kenya inherited educational situations that could be interpreted either as a problem or as the key to further school growth. To those strategists primarily concerned with equality of educational opportunity, the uneven rates of school growth among regions and neighboring communities appeared as glaring anomalies to be rectified by