Daniel arap Moi’s entry into politics came through the classroom. And classroom he remained.
Having been elected a member of the Legislative Council (Legco) to represent the Rift Valley in 1955, one of the major assignments he undertook was to move a motion asking for the creation of a single union to represent teachers and improve their welfare.
Education was segregated along race lines. Whites had superior education and their schools were heavily funded by the colonial administration.
In second tier were Asians, who also had fairly well-funded schools.
Africans came at the tail end, consigned to inferior education in poorly equipped schools.
It was deliberate. Africans were being prepared to take up subordinate roles as messengers and junior assistants in the colonial service.
They were not meant to acquire higher level skills that would put them on a pedestal to challenge the racist administration.
Teachers were hired by different entities, including local authorities and faith organisations, and the consequence was varied pay but generally poor for Africans.
Few unions existed to represent teachers. To redress the labour inequalities, teachers required a common voice. Trade unions, as had ably been demonstrated by the mercurial Tom Mboya of Kenya Federation of Labour (KFL), were not just a vehicle for work relations but a political platform.
Moi’s motion was opposed in Parliament but through diligent and consistent agitation, was finally accepted. That gave birth to the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) in 1957.
In 1961, Moi, who was Parliamentary Minister for Education in a transitional government, represented Kenya at the inaugural Conference of African States on the Development of Education in Addis Ababa.
The conference laid the foundation for free primary education, then organised as universal primary education. This was to prove prescient in Moi’s presidency.
After independence and following recommendations of the Simeon Ominde Commission of 1964, Moi supported the proposal by Knut for the formation of a central employer for teachers.
The Teachers Service Commission was established in 1967 through an Act of Parliament to manage tutors and provide standardised terms and conditions of service.
Immediately he took power in 1978, President Moi did two things. First, he abolished fees in upper primary school.
In 1971 and in light of the Addis declaration, the government had introduced free primary education but only for the early grades — Standard One to Four.
Moi came and he extended it to Standard Seven. For the first time, Kenya offered free education throughout the entire primary school.
Second, the President introduced free milk in primary school, a feeding scheme intended to enhance retention and completion. Well intended, though, these interventions never lasted.
Two things happened that were to define our education. First, the Great Commodities Depression and financial crisis of that decade precipitated shocks.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund responded by prescribing Structural Adjustment Programmes (Saps), which principally forced the government to cut subsidies for the social sector — education and health.
The government responded by stopping subsidies, textbooks and equipment to schools, pushing the burden on parents.
With that, the free primary education experiment ended. School milk was quickly withdrawn too.
The consequence was drastic. Primary school enrolment took a nosedive due to levies. Statistics indicate that by 1989, the government had attained one of the highest gross enrolment figures in Sub-Saharan Africa — 95 per cent — making Kenya a case study and a feat for which President Moi was invited to give a keynote address at the first International Conference on Education For All (EFA) in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990.
However, this fell to 77 per cent by 1996, triggering debate about high wastage in basic education.
Even so, Moi expanded secondary and university education. Many schools were named after him, precisely because of the financial support he provided.
Nairobi was among the major beneficiaries. Previously, the city had few girls schools, all of them day. Because of that, it performed poorly in national examinations.
President Moi rehabilitated, expanded, upgraded and made them all boarding. Pangani, State House, Moi Nairobi and others became what they are because of Moi.
He built State House Girls from scratch and gave it the shine it evinces. In his native Rift Valley, Moi developed many schools, among them, Kapsabet Boys and Moi Girls, Eldoret. They perform well in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations every year.
However, his flagship institutions are Kabarak, Sacho and Sunshine secondary schools. Moi Educational Centre in Nairobi, a perennial top performer in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination, as well as Kabarak Primary School, are other examples of his mark in education.
At the strategic level, Moi presided over the transformation of Kenya’s education system.
In 1981, he appointed a commission under Dr Collin MacKay, a Canadian scholar, to review the education system. Two major recommendations stand out — the establishment of a second university — Moi — and change of the system from 7-4-2-3 to 8-4-4.
The previous system was introduced by the 1964 Ominde Commission but had been found wanting over time, as contained in the ILO Report of 1971 and the Report of the National Committee on Educational Objectives and Policies (Gachathi Report) of 1976.
The 8-4-4 system came into being in 1985. It is being phased out to be replaced by the 2-6-3-3 competency-based curriculum.
Higher education was extensively expanded under Moi, who from the McKay Report, established Moi University in 1984, quickly followed by others — Kenyatta, Egerton, Jomo Kenyatta and Maseno.
However, it had negative impacts. Arising out of the cost-cutting measures introduced through Saps, the government reduced spending on the institutions, impacting on quality. Deteriorating standards at public universities became the source of student unrest.
Moi’s successor, Mwai Kibaki, did not act any better. He continued with the same trajectory and aggravated a worse situation.
Like other sectors, universities suffered Moi’s oppressive bent. Academic freedom was curtailed and independent and critical dons were hounded out of lecture halls and jailed or driven into exile.
