Mwongozo—the Study Guide to Swahili Literary Works: Its Role as a Component in Education in Kenya

Abstract

Designed to play a pedagogic role, mwongozo,1 the study guide to Swahili literature, had by the 1970s already penetrated2 Kenya educational practice, causing the relationship between Swahili literature and Swahili literary study to appear more visible, in spite of the opposition inherent in them: literature being an art, and literary study, if not precisely a science, a species of knowledge (Wellek and Warren 15). Such an opposition however, raises a number of theoreti cal issues that are beyond the limit of this essay. Suffice it to stress that it especially offers two alternatives: one stressing the conception that literature can only be read, enjoyed, and appreciated, but not studied; and the other, maintaining that for academic and intellectual reasons, literature should thus be taught as well as appreciated and enjoyed. The word teach, however, carries many connotations and can therefore be interpreted in various ways. With reference to literature, its meaning goes beyond the need to digest the substance of a given work of literature, to that of grasping the work in its totality, translating it into intellectual experiences that affect the reader's mental attitude. The word also has the sense of providing students with the analytical tools necessary to cope with rules and conventions that structure texts; of sharpening their intellectual skills. Reading a literary work means read ing it on its own terms, but also in relation to other works by the same author or others. Though the above objectives are essential to the teaching of literature in general, they by no means give a complete picture of why study guides to Swahili literary works, mwongozo, were introduced in Kenya's educational practice. It was, it could be argued, the quantitative and qualitative growth of Swahili literature