Ideas & Debate
Why prestigious Lenana School lost its glamour
Thursday August 28 2014It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
This is the opening paragraph to Charles Dicken’s classic novel, ‘‘A tale of two cities.’’
It is the memory of those timeless words that overcame me when I visited my alma mater, Lenana School, last Sunday. I joined my fellow Laibons (the name we old boys of the school have proudly christened ourselves) in a thanksgiving service that was being held at the school’s chapel in honour of its first African headmaster, Dr. James Kamunge.
You probably are wondering why you should care about alumni ongoings at my humble high school.
The reason is simple—the story and history of Lenana School in many ways symbolises the journey that our education system has undergone pre-independence to date.
It provides a perfect example of how we managed to transition from the colonial system through independence and how far we are fairing on half a century down the line.
A little history may suffice. The year is 1949. In education circles, it is the year the Beecher Report policy initiative was launched by the colonial government that aimed to transform primary education for Africans.
It was the same year that the then Colonial Governor Philip Mitchell, in response to the European settlers’ plea of insufficient institutions of post primary education available to their children, set up what was then known as Duke of York School.
So passionate was he about this school, that the governor briefly housed the inaugural 76 students of Duke of York at the then British Colonial Governor’s House which is currently State House as they waited for the school’s completion at the expansive 250 acre piece at the edge of Ngong Forest in Karen.
Imagine an institution with a well kept nine-hole golf course, rifle range, horse stables, cricket oval with a cricket pavilion, two football pitches, two hockey pitches, three rugby pitches, an Olympic size swimming pool, two tennis courts and a well equipped squash court.
Even seven-star hotels today would only dream of such luxury in amenities yet this was what the complete Duke of York School presented for its students in the ‘60s.
The astronomy club was well endowed with telescopes, the science labs fully equipped, the school had its own water supply from boreholes and it’s own sewerage treatment plant.
Students and teachers had all janitorial, laundry, dining, grounds-keeping and any other such labour taken care of, to allow them to concentrate on learning, sport and leisure.
It was only after independence that the school started admitting its first Black and Asian students in the mid 1960s although these pioneer students underwent severe discrimination.
Richard Leakey was one of the first few European students who openly aired the then considered liberal views calling for racial equity when he joined Duke of York in 1961.
He was locked in a wire cage, urinated on and poked with sticks by his fellow students for his African-loving antics.
Twenty years later, the school was fully ‘Africanised’ and this was done by changing its name from Duke of York to Lenana School. The first African headmaster of the school was the then 35-year-old James Kamunge.
His legacy
Last Sunday, reminiscing his tenure as headmaster of what was still a majority white institution between 1969-1973, the now octogenarian almost brought the hall to tears as he recounted the racist challenges he had to undergo serving at the helm of staff that were all white.
Despite those challenges, Dr Kamunge not only managed to transform Lenana into a cosmopolitan institution, but he laid a foundation that saw the school create and maintain high standards of academic and sporting disciplines post-independence.
It was no surprise that four years into his tenure, he was headhunted by the government to serve as a senior policy maker. He is remembered in the education circles for the 1988 Kamunge Report .
As we came to celebrate this man, the irony of the celebration stood stark still before our very own eyes.
Lenana School today, and as an alumni I say this with ultimate sadness, is a shell of its former self. The much heralded golf course is now a cattle paddock. The buildings are in no shape to match the resplendent selves they were 65 years ago.
It struggles academically against much lesser schools and its much famed sporting disciplines, especially rugby, are no longer a force to reckon with.
Lenana School is not failing because it was Africanised. The 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s were dazzling and the standards were kept high thanks to the perfect foundation set by Dr Kamunge.
Ironically, one has to go back to the 1988 Kamunge report on education financing to establish the root of where the rain starting beating Lenana School and other major national schools as the government started grossly underfunding these schools.
Hence the irony of the thanksgiving service last Sunday.
We, the Laibon Society awarded Dr Kamunge the inaugural “The Distinguished Laibon Award Lifetime Achievement” – in a school hall that was leaking from disrepair and looking anything but distinguished.
Yet it did not water down the fact that he deserved the award. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.