Tracing the origins of vocational training in Kenya’s education

Taking the well established and amply supported Hampton Institute as his criterion, Jones reported as questionable and unworthy of support, many of the struggling Negro schools which, although below standard, had educated and inspired thousands of Negroes who would otherwise not have received any education at all if these schools had not been established and maintained at a lower level.
This fault in Jones’ judgement led most Negroes to consider him an evil in their lives; but he was, nevertheless, catapulted into fame among the capitalists’ brigade and government officials supporting the education of Negroes. They made Jones the almoner of the despised race. When he said do not give here and do not help yonder, the “philanthropist” elements heeded his bidding. He became immediately the most powerful agent of Negro control developing a dreadful machine using the Phelps-Stoke Fund to finance espionage. He attended Negro assemblies and had his co-workers act as spies during meetings.

W.E.D. DuBois

In a burst of indignation, W.E.D. DuBois once proclaimed Thomas Jesse Jones to be “the evil genius of the Negro race”. He was objecting to the fact that a white man was in a position of leadership in determining the course of African American affairs and perhaps more importantly, the route Jones was following in educational policy for black people. DuBois particularly objected to Jones’ emphasis on allegedly practical activities and vocational education, to the detriment of courses designed to develop the intellect.

While DuBois believed that integration of these two aspects was theoretically possible, in practice one was being developed at the expense of the other. The result was a curriculum designed for future “servants and labourers, not educated men and women”.

In the meantime, education for Africans in Kenya was in the hands of missionaries at the turn of the 20th century. The structure of missionary education placed a few schools within the vicinity of the mission where the teachers were white missionaries and “bush” schools in outlying areas, taught by untrained African teachers cum evangelists. Education was racially segregated with different schools and curricula for Africans, Europeans, Indians and Arabs (Muslims).

Following the publication of the Devonshire White Paper in 1923, the colonial government invited the Phelps-Stoke Fund to undertake a study of the education system in Kenya. The Fund produced a report titled “Education in East Africa” in 1924.

The report invoked the Jeanes idea, which was based on the view that Africans were mainly rurally oriented and agriculturally based people. The idea was named after Anna T. Jeanes who had donated money to pay for teachers in rural schools. The most far-reaching recommendation was centred on the teaching of industrial education and agriculture as the core basis of colonial African education.
The report also found that although Africans comprised 98 per cent of the total population, only 30 per cent of the education budget was being applied to fund African schools.

The recommendations of the Phelps-Stoke Commission were welcome by the settlers as they saw a ready supply of semi-skilled labour coming out of the proposed vocational schools to work on their farms as artisans, drivers, and low-level supervisors.

One of the first products of the Phelp-Stokes Commission was the Native Industrial Training Depot, established in 1924 at Kabete and fully funded by the colonial government. Later that year the Jeanes School (now Kenya Institute of Government) was established to train women in domestic science and basic hygiene.