Developing Friends schools in Kenya
Roger Sturge and John Welton describe a recent educational visit to Quaker schools in Kenya
‘American Quakers brought the Bible and British Quakers brought education’. This recent statement by a Kenyan teacher still partially reflects the contrast between American and British Quakers in our relationship with Yearly Meetings in Africa.
The first Quaker mission in Kenya was established by mid-Western American Quakers in 1902 and the Friends Church became one of the leading protestant denominations in western Kenya. Now there are sixteen Yearly Meetings with more than half the worldwide membership of the Society.
Quaker schools
Most schools in Kenya were founded by churches but are now mainly funded by the government, retaining their link with their original sponsors through the appointment of four church-nominated governors, a situation that has similarities with the position of church-founded schools within the British school system.
There are over two hundred Friends secondary schools and around a thousand primary schools in Kenya, mainly in the Western Province. There has been a long-standing connection with Friends School Kamusinga. Its first two head teachers with British, Alan Bradley and John Woods. Kenyan Friends have concerns about the quality of education available in their schools and the extent that they continue to reflect Quaker values.
In February and March this year, five experienced educators from Britain responded to an invitation to travel amongst Kenyan Quaker schools and join with a group of Quaker school head teachers and Yearly Meeting officers to explore the strengths and weakness in the way the schools are performing and identify ways in which they can be supported.
The project was organised by John Muhanji, director of Friends United Meeting’s Africa Ministries in Kisumu, who spends a great deal of his time working with the schools. John Welton, Roger Sturge, Ann Floyd, John Dunston and Mai Targett from Britain were joined by an American professor of education, Eloise Hockett, who is supporting a group of Friends School teachers who are developing a secondary school peace curriculum.
Resources
The proportion of children attending secondary schools has expanded greatly in recent years and our abiding impression is of enormous variation in the facilities and resources available in the nineteen schools visited. While Friends School Kamusinga has some of the best exam results in the country and very extensive facilities, most of the schools had pitifully few resources. The expansion in enrolment has taken place without taking account of the wider range of abilities and the need to adapt teaching methods, curriculum and the examination system. Organisationally, many of the schools could be classified as failing, with inadequate resources and teaching that is didactic and textbook driven. There is little opportunity for student participation.
We did observe some exceptions where brilliant teachers overcame such challenges. Good teaching is helped by, but not dependent on, resources. In one of the best-resourced schools a teacher gave a textbook-grounded PowerPoint presentation on volcanoes and rift valleys without suggesting that students looked out of the window at Mount Elgon! In contrast, in a school with few books and no computers, a teacher ended another geography lesson with a group of students performing a traditional dance, which involved pulling apart to illustrate the formation of a rift valley.
Most of the schools involved boarding accommodation but very few of the students had mosquito nets. In dormitories with up to sixty children, twin and triple bunk beds are packed closely together, some with no space between them. Students share their beds with the tin trunks containing their possessions.
Quaker influence
Links between the schools and their local Friends Church vary greatly. In some a local Quaker Pastor gives a weekly evangelical address to the students, for others there is little contact. Most teachers and head teachers had very little knowledge of Quakerism. Almost none of them were aware of the Quaker testimonies and understandings common within contemporary British Quakerism.
Following our school visits we took part in the annual conference of Friends School principals and Yearly Meeting officers for a joint exploration of areas of need.
Three areas emerged for development. First, improvement to the quality of teaching and learning to take account of the broad range of student abilities now present in secondary schools. Second, the need for improved leadership and management throughout the schools to support change. Third, we explored ways of enhancing knowledge of the distinctiveness of Quaker witness through teaching about the testimonies.
We identified some of the factors that will be necessary for the implementation of a Peace Curriculum for all students, based on the historic Quaker testimonies and informing Kenyan students of Quaker history and current involvement in methods used in Africa and elsewhere to promote peace and reconciliation. Few teachers know about the major contribution that some Kenyan Quakers made to the re-establishment of peace within their communities during the recent political conflicts.
The best forms of development work come from a local awareness of a need for change. On behalf of Kenyan Friends, John Muhanji and the Quaker school head teachers have asked for further support, both to help with school improvement and the reinforcement of Quaker principles in the way the schools are run and the education they provide.
One outcome is the development of a ‘Charter of Entitlement’ for Friends Schools, setting out what parents and students can expect a Friends School to provide in terms of values, safety and the quality of learning.
The second outcome is a request for money for the two-year appointment of an education officer who will work with John Muhanji and the head teachers conference to initiate a self help school improvement programme, with some further support from British Quakers who have experience of school development in Africa.
American Quakers still provide support to the mission of the Friends Churches and we consider that it is good that Kenyan Friends have seen British Quakers as having a further contribution to make in education. As western liberal religious beliefs and practices diverge from those that our forefathers took to Africa, it is important to take every opportunity to maintain contact through practical work that shares our Quaker concerns and professional experience.
For further information contact The Graham Ecroyd Trust, 10 Carmarthen Road, Bristol BS9 4DU.
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