Two of my eminent former students at Kenyatta University are hitting major milestones this month. Teachers Service Commission (TSC) boss, Dr Nancy Macharia, retires this month after ten years at the helm.
Then, Professor Egara Kabaji Snr of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) has been nominated Chancellor, yes Chancellor, of the Kigali Mountain University in Rwanda.
You may remember my boasting to you some time ago that I had, in my long classroom and lecture room career, taught Vice-Chancellors and other top flight scholars and professionals. Now, with a Chancellor to my name, I hardly know how to thump my chest. But, as always in such cases, I have told you, my main question is, “Is this because of me or in spite of me?”
We diehard teachers have no fear of that question. This is because, either way you answer it, our impact on these high achievers is undeniable. The joy of addicts like me is the genuine pleasure I invariably derived from interacting with all my students.
“I wonder, by my troth, what you and I did before we loved,” exclaims the lover in John Donne’s poem, “The Good Morrow”. “Troth” is “truth” in modern English, and in all truth, I have not done anything far from teaching all my adult life. I know there are many other men and women like me, who cannot imagine a meaningful life without teaching. How I love them, and our beloved pupils and students!
Speaking of students and teachers, I call Dr Nancy Macharia my “boss” because I am an employee of the TSC. I began my career in Kenya in 1977 as TSC Teacher No. 1039. (I quote from memory).
After interviewing me, Ms Moss of the Machakos Girls School sent me to the TSC, then housed in one of those classical buildings on Kenyatta Avenue, for further processing and my appointment letter.
The rest is my “many-splendored” love affair, with Machakos Girls, with Ukambani, with the TSC, with KU and with Kenya, that I keep celebrating with you.
When Dr Macharia reminded me, some time ago, that she had been at KU during my days there, the nostalgic pot of all those memories was considerably stirred.
Brilliant postgraduate scholarship
Pride, certainly, was my main emotion at the realisation that one of my students was in charge of one of the largest employment agencies in the country.
But I was quick to admit that a KU graduate, even at the Bachelor level, is a product of many disciplines and many teachers.
It would be arrogant avarice for one to claim her or him as entirely one’s student. Still, if the student had said she remembered my interaction with her, that was reason enough for me to feel grateful. My mite (if not might) of a contribution had been acknowledged.
I did not closely follow Dr Macharia’s progress after she graduated from KU, her brilliant postgraduate scholarship, both in Kenya and overseas, and her professional formations and early engagements. But I could not help noticing when she took over at the TSC, for the reasons hinted at earlier. It is a very prestigious job heading this gigantic organization, but it is also massively challenging.
It would be highly presumptuous of me to attempt a “report card” for Dr Macharia. All I can say is that juggling the myriad and often conflicting demands and expectations of all of us education stakeholders in the TSC, for ten years, has not been a walk in the park. This old mwalimu’s nod of acknowledgment is both to TSC and its outgoing leader.
As for Chancellor-designate, Prof Egara Kabaji, Snr, I will share only three little bits about him. The first is that he is and he has been a colleague ever since I met him in his undergraduate days. In his understated style, he struck me, and I think my departed friend, Francis Imbuga, as a man cut out for Literature. He has not disappointed. I can hardly think of a scholar in East Africa who is as fully immersed in his or her discipline as this son of mine.
“Mcheza kwao hutuzwa ” (he who performs among his people is rewarded). Kabaji’s elevation to the rare rank of Chancellor, across the valleys, hills and lakes in Rwanda, is, among other things, justified recognition of his incomparable dance in his field.
Most importantly, Rwanda’ honour to Prof Kabaji is, I think a broad recognition of all of us East Africans, especially Kenyans, who came to the country’s educational rescue in the very difficult years following the genocide. Among my fellow literati, Prof Rocha Chimera, Dr Evans Mugarizi, Kabaji himself and, of course, the late Francis Imbuga served tours of duty in Kigali in those days.
Finally, Chancellor Kabaji’s glorious return to Rwanda signifies two important points dear to my heart. The first is our real East Africanness (Ujumuiya wetu). Secondly, as I hinted recently, any university worth its name is a “universal” affair and should attract and welcome the best from all over the globe.
