Colonial Educational Crossroads: Government and Missionary Contests and the Subjugation of Kenyan-Africans (1895-1936)

This thesis focuses on the period between 1895-1936 and examines how the British colonial administration (through the agency of the Church Missionary Society (CMS)) used formal education as a tool to subjugate and create what was considered as an obedient Kenyan-African workforce. It argues that a tenuous but mutually beneficial relationship developed between the colonial government and CMS. This relationship was driven by an evolving colonial mindset, geared towards notions of European supremacy, and which ultimately came at the great expense of the educational and civil rights of Kenyan-Africans. In the period prior to World War One, educational policies were endorsed by the colonial administration to maintain control over and segregate Kenyan-Africans from Europeans. By pressuring the CMS through controlled grants-in-aid, the colonial government was able to source a steady supply of vocationally trained workers for White settler farms. The theoretical framework of “knowledge transfer" is also used to examine these colonial interventions, allowing for a trace and comparison of educational and religious praxis across colonial borders, especially between India and Kenya. In the period following the Great War, the continued subjugation of Kenyan-Africans led to a growing resentment towards colonial rule and CMS pursuits, and inadvertently increased their desire for an advanced, English based, academic education. To suppress these educational and political desires, the colonial government consistently sought the support of the metropole through the use of favourable rhetoric. This support facilitated the introduction of more rigid educational policies, designed along racial, religious, and tribal lines. These early government and missionary contests eventually ignited what became the early struggles for Kenyan independence