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Benefiting from Basic
Education, School Quality and
Functional Literacy in Kenya
by
PERGAMON PRESS
OXFORD N E W YORK BEIJING FRANKFURT
SO PAULO SYDNEY TOKYO TORONTO
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A cknowledgements
Montreal 1985
vi
INTRODUCTION
Responses to Secularisation
When discordance occurs, the community may elect different leadership
or, as is often the case, a section of the community will establish its own
mosque and/or madrassa. Four of the six villages in the Msambweni area
have mosques, and there are five madrassas. Some have been established for
reasons of convenience owing to the distance between some of the villages.
Others have been established for a clan or clan cluster, the members of which
live in the same area though not necessarily in the same village. Yet each
mosque and madrassa is unique in ways that are important to the community
and revealing of the varying degrees of Islamization within Digo society as
well as of its responses to secular influences.
Tolerance for indigenous practices which are antithetical to the Islamic
religion is a source of controversy in the Msambweni Muslim community.
Islam is, seemingly, an exacting religion. Adherents must accept the oneness
of God, the authority of the Quran and the "pillars" of the faith (prayers,
alms, fasting, etc.). And these are not, as with many tenets of Christianity,
relegated to individual conscience. The obligations of the faith are to be
strictly observed. However, there is much more flexibility in the faith than
this formulation acknowledges. The spread of Islam to sub-Saharan Africa
was accomplished not by forced conversion, through slavery or warfare, but
by the gradual assimilation of individuals whose beliefs became progressively
more "orthodox" through trade and intellectual contact with the rest of the
Muslim world.
The Digos share with the other Mijikenda beliefs about a common origin
(Singwaya) and descent from a common ancestor that provide a cultural
framework for the social organization of their society into age sets, as well
as for ceremonies such as initiation and rituals associated with marriage and
The Acquisition and Uses of Literacy in a Coastal Society 11
death which punctuate the life cycle. Many are incompatible with orthodox
interpretations of Islam, although there is much scope for accommodation.
Circumcision of boys and girls, for example, is a pre-Islamic practice of
many African societies; it also exists in Middle Eastern countries. The
Prophet had little to say on the subject and circumcision was integrated into
Islam as a ritual that has become closely associated with membership in the
religious community. Initiation of boys and girls in African societies, though
involving the act of circumcision as a culminating experience, is preceded by
instruction in what are, in any interpretation of Islam, heretical beliefs and
practices such as those relating to placating or invoking the assistance of
ancestral spirits. Today, most Digo Muslims in Msambweni initiate their
children before the age of five, often at birth. Ancestor worship persists,
however. There are several shrines called mizimu along the seashore at
Msambweni where offerings and sacrifices are made to the spirits. This is
preached against by some Imams in the Friday darassas (sermons), and is
a subject of concern to some madrassa teachers. Others are indifferent to
such practices. To take another example, uchii (palm wine) had important
ceremonial purposes among the Digo, in the paying of the bride price, for
instance. The Quran is unambiguous about abstinence from alcohol. Yet
uchii is still used in many marital and burial ceremonies. Again, there is
division within the Muslim community about this practice. It is tolerated by
some religious authorities as a matter of importance to families and clans,
while others attempt to eradicate the practice by emphasizing its incompati-
bility with Islam. The relegation of such pre-Islamic communal activities to
the realm of the family and clan seems effective in ensuring substantial
modification of these practices, as in the case of initiation, or their eventual
elimination.
Paradoxically, although the Muslim community has become more "ortho-
dox" in many respects, its institutions for imparting religious learning have
become more secular. Until very recently, madrassa teachers received no
formal training and were qualified to teach the Quran on the basis of their
facility in reading Arabic, their dedication to propagating Muslim learning,
their skill in organizing instruction, and their ability to retain the confidence
of parents. Children were admitted to madrassa at preschool age and
progressed according to their performance in recitation, completing in-
struction whenever the Mwalim (teacher) determined that their knowledge
of sacred texts was satisfactory. The Mwalim maintained strict discipline
with a switch or whip made of braided palm leaves. Madrassas were
constructed of mud and wattle with thatched roofs for use in the wet season.
In the dry season, children often sat outside and received instruction under
the shade of a tree. The provision of Koranic texts and slate boards for
transcription sufficed for learning resources.
Two of the five madrassas in Msambweni have remained like this. The rest
have become more like secular schools, at least superficially. They are housed
12 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
in buildings with concrete walls and galvanized tin roofs that are indistin-
guishable from the government schools. A few madrassa teachers have
received formal training at institutions newly created for this purpose. One
madrassa in Msambweni now employs a trained language specialist. Another
groups children for instruction according to their age and placement in
school. Children at this madrassa sit at desks and follow a syllabus of studies
leading to an oral examination that is referred to appropriately as the CPE
or Certificate of Primary Education examination. A graduation ceremony is
arranged for the successful students at which prizes are given. In brief, these
madrassas have tried to retain enrolment and their central role in the Muslim
community by being what many parents expect "good" education to be;
instruction carried out under the supervision of a trained teacher, planned
in a sequential fashion in accordance with principles of child psychology and
provided in an atmosphere thought to be conducive to learning.
Almost all of the school-age cohort in Msambweni is enrolled in one of
the three primary schools in the Vengujini sublocation. School enrolments
have grown considerably in the independence period. Only one of the three
schools was constructed prior to independence, and it was built for the
children of parents from outside the district who were employed in the
district hospital and other government offices. Muslim children attended
the madrassas.
The growth in school attendance is the result of government incentives as
well as of factors that have made schooling not only attractive but essential
for the Muslim community. The government of Kenya gradually abolished
primary school fees beginning in 1974 for the first four standards. By 1979
tuition fees were eliminated, contributing greatly to the dramatic rise in
primary school enrolment in the 1970s. Perhaps the most important factor
in increasing school participation in Msambweni and elsewhere in Kwale
district has been the marginalization of the Muslim population due to the
expansion of the cash economy, wage employment and changes in land
tenure that have favoured migration into the area. The Muslim community's
low level of educational attainment has put it at a serious disadvantage
vis--vis other communities in the country in claiming the economic benefits
which development planning promises: land titles, employment, better
roads, hospitals, government maintained secondary schools, and other
public goods. At the same time, the community has lost through national
integration the relative political autonomy and protection from the market
economy that colonialism afforded. A sign posted at the entrance to the
headmaster's office in the Harambee (community sponsored) secondary
school at Msambweni succinctly states the importance of schooling for
Muslim children and their parents, "No English, No Jobs." The implications
are self-evident; no jobs, no cash income, no land, in sum, no means to resist
the centripetal influence of the modern state.
CHAPTER 1
Yet the contribution of school knowledge and skills to these effects is still
poorly understood. For many reasons, most educational research has tended
to use input/output models for assessing the effects of instruction on learning
and its outcomes in terms of changes that can be correlated with schooling.
To attribute change to school knowledge and skills does not reveal much
about what is acquired and retained from schooling, or what is necessary
for change to occur. Comparison of individuals with different levels of
schooling with respect to important outcomes such as increased farm yields,
may suggest gross school effects but will also reveal large within-group
differences that may approach or exceed the between-group differences that
are the objects of educational policy. Unless efforts are made better to
understand how school experiences facilitate individual and societal change,
the policy implications of this research will remain ambiguous.
The relationship between school experiences and school outcomes is the
subject of this book. Its purpose is to examine the instructional antecedents
of the development of capacities to make use of products and processes of
modern technology that increase productivity and benefit individuals and
society. Such capacities are central to various explanations of the re-
lationship between schooling and social and economic change which impli-
cate the school curricula, literacy, and organization of instruction, and the
13
14 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
articulation of schooling with the wage and monetary economy as some of
the mechanisms through which individuals are changed and benefits to
society occur.
Unfortunately, explanations of school effects have only a very oblique
relationship to research dealing with the internal efficiency of schooling,
which has been guided mainly by concerns about the effectiveness of
instruction conceived in the narrow sense of learning what is necessary to
progress from one stage of schooling to the next. The correlation of
schooling with various social and economic outcomes was for many years
supportive of quantitative expansion of education, particularly at the
primary level, and indifference to its implications for instruction. Recent
evidence of the variability of outcome responses has led to a concern for
reducing the variability of school inputs to facilitate retention and boast
achievement, thereby increasing the efficiency of educational investments
(Heyneman and White, 1986). Whether interventions which make schools
more internally efficient also increase their external efficiency is, however, a
matter that will be considered in subsequent discussion.
BBEC
CHAPTER 2
TABLE 1
Primary School Enrolments in Kenya 1963-84
N o . of
Year Primary Schools Enrolment % Change
1963 6,058 840,677
1964 5,150 1,014,719 21
1965 5,078 1,010,889 -3
1966 5,699 1,043,416 3
1967 5,959 1,133,179 9
1968 6,135 1,209,680 7
1969 6,111 1,282,297 6
1970 6,123 1,427,589 11
1971 6,372 1,525,493 7
1972 6,657 1,675,919 10
1973 6,932 1,816,017 8
1974 7,706 2,711,657 49
1975 8,161 2,881,155 5
1976 8,544 2,894,617 1
1977 8,896 2,974,849 3
1978 9,349 2,994,894 1
1979 9,622 3,698,246 23
1980 10,255 3,973,040 7
1981 11,127 3,981,162 1
1982 11,497 4,158,972 4
1983 11,856 4,323,811 4
1984 12,543 4,384,559 1
Source: Ministry of Education, 1984.
About ninety percent (96%) of the school age population is now attending
primary school (Ministry of Education, 1984).
Each step taken to increase participation in primary education, the most
recent being the lengthening of the cycle in 1984, which expanded enrolment
by about 583,000, has had serious and sometimes unanticipated implications
for school financing and instruction (Personal communication, Ministry of
Education, 1985). While educational policies effecting school expansion are
made at the national level, much of the onus for carrying out government
directives is borne by local communities and parents who must raise funds
for school facilities and equipment.
A presidential Working Party appointed in 1981 to examine what might
be involved in establishing a second university for Kenya recommended
major changes to the structure of the country's educational system (Republic
of Kenya, 1981). Chaired by the former head of a Canadian maritime
university, the Working Party proposed that another year be added to
university studies, secondary education be shortened to four years and
primary education be increased from seven to eight years; in other words,
Qualitative Consequences of School Expansion in Kenya 29
reorganization of schooling along the North American pattern. The Work-
ing Party's report ended many years of speculation prompted by the
government's concern over the large number of primary school students
proceeding to secondary schools who after completion of their and A level
examinations, were denied admission to the University of Nairobi. Less than
a third (30%) of the students who sat for the A level examinations obtained
sufficient marks for admission to the University, and slightly more than half
of them were actually awarded places due to the lack of residential and other
facilities (Eshiwani, 1983,29). A new university and a shorter secondary
cycle would lessen demands for greater access to secondary and higher
education, at least temporarily. At the primary level, the Working Party
recommended that numeracy and literacy be emphasized for the first six
years, and that the last two years of primary education have a practical bias,
providing children with skills necessary to modernize rural life.
8 + 4 + 4?
In early 1984, the government moved to implement the Working Party's
recommendations relating to primary education. Ministry of Education
officials, who for many years had assumed that any revision of the primary
cycle would be in the direction of the two stage, nine year program proposed
by the National Committee on Educational Objectives and Policies
(NCEOP) in 1976, were now asked to make preparations for an eight year
program that was more vocational in orientation (NCEOP, 1976). The
Ministry's task force on curriculum implications recommended:
a s t r u c t u r e . . . that should lead to the development of communication skills
(literacy) through the teaching of Mother Tongue, English and Kiswahili
languages. The development of numeracy will be done through the teaching of
mathematics, while the development of scientific outlook will be done through
the teaching of integrated science. The development and acquisition of social and
cultural knowledge, skills and attitudes will be done through teaching of social
studies, religious education, music and physical education. Art, craft and home
science will provide for practical knowledge and skills (Ministry of High
Education, 1984,4).
Early one market day James' and Jane's mother set off for the market.
Before leaving the homestead, she instructed them to look after their
younger brother, John, until she returned.
James and Jane faithfully watched Johnbut only for a short time. As
time elapsed they began to grow bored. Presently, Peter and Mary, their best
friends, came over to play.
"Why don't we skip?" Mary suggested.
James and Jane, only too glad to have an opportunity to play, immedi-
ately agreed. Jane fetched the rope from the house and soon the four
children were playing happily. John began to cry but they ignored him. The
sun rose higher and higher in the sky. It became unbearably hot and the four
children went into the house for a cool drink, all thoughts of John out of
their minds. Then they went back to their game.
The sun was setting when James' mother returned from the market. Seeing
that the children were playing, she assumed that John was asleep.
"Is John asleep?" she asked the children.
"Yes," James replied, without thinking.
Their mother was entering the house when a loud cry broke the stillness
of the night air. It came from the direction of the store. James' mother
practically threw down the basket she was carrying and rushed to the store.
The sight she saw almost made her scream. There, attempting to climb a pile
of bricks and gurgling happily, was John. She rushed to his side. He tottered
and fell. As might have been expected, John began to cry and stopped only
when he was lying in his mother's armsin the house.
James and Jane, fearing that some disaster had befallen their younger
brother, crept stealthily into the house praying that they would not be
Qualitative Consequences of School Expansion in Kenya 33
sighted. It was all in vain. Hearing the soft tread of footsteps on the floor,
their mother looked up to see James and Jane, guilt written all over their
faces.
They were given a thorough scolding and retired to bed vowing to always
do as they were told. They were lucky that John had not been injured. Who
knew what would happen next time? Hopefully, there would never be a next
time (KNEC, 1983,7-8).
TABLE 2
Primary School Curricula 1984
Standards 1 and 2 3 4-8
However, the objectives which have been established for primary edu-
cation are much more ambitious than this summary of school curricula
might imply. Children should acquire: "functional literacy and numeracy
Qualitative Consequences of School Expansion in Kenya 35
and an elementary understanding of science; positive attitudes towards
work, community and national development... ; knowledge, skills and
attitudes necessary for raising and improving the quality of family life;
and functional knowledge and skills for civic participation" (Ministry of
Education, 1982,2). That these outcomes are achievable is suggested by
educational research which has established a strong relationship between
schooling and various social and economic outcomes. Efforts to attribute
social and economic changes to the acquisition of literacy, numeracy and
knowledge of biology, chemistry, etc. in school have not so far taken into
account how qualitative characteristics of instruction may affect the devel-
opment of cognitive skills or their usage in daily life.
CHAPTER 3
Kwale district, which is the locus of this study, is still one of the least
developed districts in the country, educationally. The school participation
rate in Kwale district in 1984 (64%) was about two-thirds of the national
average (96%), and even below those of many other districts with pastoral
populations; considered by educational authorities in Kenya and by edu-
cational researchers elsewhere to be the most resistant to formal schooling
(Personal communication, Ministry of Education, 1984). In district com-
parisons of the performance of primary school students on the 1982
Certificate of Primary Education examination, Kwale ranked 31st among
the thirty-nine rural districts in the National Examinations Council's Order
of Merit. The mean score for students in the district (141) was more than
twenty-five points below that of Marang'a, the most meritorious rural
district (168), and forty points below the top ranking students in Nakuru
municipality (181) (KNEC, 1983, 71-72). Notwithstanding the low school
participation rate in Kwale district, the poor performance of its students in
national examinations, and the official characterization of coastal peoples as
educationally "backward", a 1981 national survey indicated a relatively high
level of adult literacy. More than half of Kwale residents (57%) could
comprehend Kiswahili text, and a similar proportion (57%) could write a
simple paragraph. Most other Kenyans who have had more access to formal
schooling were found to be illiterate in any language (Personal communi-
cation, Ministry of Education, 1984). The unexpectedly high adult literacy
rate may well be due not to formal schooling or to other "modernizing"
influences present in this predominantly rural district, but to the existence
of a large number of Koranic schools that were developed first in the Arab
settlements on the coast, and which then spread among the African peoples
of the district earlier in this century.
The Muslim peoples of coastal Kenya were the first to be exposed to
western education. In contrast to other African coastal societiesthe
Yoruba and Ibo in West Africa, for examplethey resisted schooling and
expansion of the wage economy, which had effects devastating to their
society. In coastal Kenya, western schooling was provided initially to freed
slaves converted to Christianity, tangible evidence of the good brought
36
The Implantation of Western Schooling in Coastal Kenya 37
about by the suppression of the slave trade. This was the justification offered
for British involvement in the dismantling of the Zanzibari federation of
Arab trading centres and, subsequently, for British colonization of East
Africa. European missionary activity and administration transformed a
centuries-old Arab society which flourished on the coastal trade and
plantation production into an economic and educational backwater of
modern Kenya.
The Swahilis
The term Swahilis identifies coastal peoples of Arab, Asian or African
origin, most of whom speak Kiswahili as their mother tongue and practise
Islam. Individuals of Arab descent were categorized as non-Africans by
British colonial authorities, and were entitled to a measure of self-
government. More importantly, they were exempted from hut and poll taxes
and were not coerced into sending their children to missionary or govern-
ment schools. The origins of those who were classified as "Arabs" have been
traced to migrations from Oman and Persia in the eighth and ninth centuries
which resulted in Arab settlements being established from Mogadishu to
Kilwa along the East African coast. Most early migrants were Sunni
Muslims. Since independence in 1963 at which time the Arab population
risked being designated as foreigners, they have lost their separate status and
now regard themselves as Swahilis (lit. "men of the coast").
In colonial society, the Afro-Arabs comprised the converted African
peoples of paternal Arab descent including the former slaves of Arab traders
and planters. The Arabs introduced the cultivation of sugarcane, rice and
cotton into East Africa and these staples were traded with the Arab states
of the Indian Ocean. Slavery was important to plantation production until
the beginning of this century and was itself a source of great wealth
especially after the Sultan Seyyid Said of Oman made Zanzibar his new
capital in the 1830s and obtained slaves from the East African interior to
develop the island's economy (Hailey, 1956, 383). Afro-Arabs referred to
themselves as waungwana if their parentage was free of the stigma of slavery,
or as watumwa (slave born). Both groups aspired to be classified as Arabs
(Mambo, 1980, 17). Converted Africans that did not obtain Arab status in
the colonial period are known collectively as mahaji, including the southern
Mijikenda Digo who comprise the majority of the African population in
Kwale district (Mambo, 1980, 19). Most were converted after emancipation
and have retained many features of their pre-Islamic cultures (Mwambo,
1980,19).
The Mijikenda, a Bantu-speaking people, populated the area between the
coastal strip settled by Arabs and Afro-Arabs and the hills and savannah
of the interior. They migrated to the Kenyan coast from present day Somalia
in the 17th century, and are comprised of nine distinct groups: the Kauma,
38 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
Giriama, Chonyi, Jibana, Kambe, Ribe, Rabai and Duruma, as well as the
Digo. The Digo, who are of the most interest to us, were the first to migrate
from Singwaya which was the ancestral homeland of the Mijikenda (Spear,
1978,18). Digo is derived from the name of one of the sons of the elder wife
of Muyeye, the father of the Mijikenda (Spear, 1978, 17). Mijikenda age-sets
date the migration of the Digo to their present home in Kwale district where
they built a kaya for ritual purposes and protection which can be seen today
near the district headquarters in the town of Kwale. Their conversion to
Islam was accelerated by colonial taxation of Africans which was intended
to drive them into the wage economy of the European coastal plantations
that supplanted those managed by Arabs and maintained by slavery
(Cooper, 1980).
TABLE 3
Primary School Enrolments by Province in 1964
School age Enrolment
Province population (000) (000) %
Central 265.9 250.0 94.0
Coast 120.3 55.1 45.8
Eastern 337.4 166.9 49.5
Nairobi 29.0 39.8 137.3f
Nyanza 354.1 193.7 54.7
North Eastern 44.8 0.9 2.1
Rift Valley 373.7 144.2 38.6
Western 232.5 164.2 70.6
Total 1,757.7 1,014.8 57.7
Source: Government of Kenya, Kenya Education Report II
(Nairobi: Government Printers, 1965,9)
fThe school participation rate exceeds 100% due to the transfer of
students from other parts of the country into Nairobi schools.
Pastoral populations were then, and remain today, among the most edu-
cationally disadvantaged in the country, the predominently Muslim pastoral
societies of northern Kenya having the lowest rate of primary school
enrolment. Among the provinces without significant pastoral populations,
the Coast Province ranked last in school participation (46%), below the
national average (58%), and much below that of the densely populated
Central (94%) and Western (71%) Provinces. Although no official estimates
of the school-age population in coastal districts were available for this year,
the wide variations in school participation are evident from Table 4.
52 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
TABLE 4
Primary School Enrolment and Population
Estimates for Coastal Districts
in 1965
Enrolment Population Estimate
District: (000) (000)
Assuming that about 20% of the total population was between the ages of
7 and 13 (a national estimate derived from the 1962 census), the school
participation rate in the Arab settlement of Lamu was less than 10% while
in Mombasa the rate (55%) was only slightly below the national average for
the previous year. In Kwale district, about a fourth (23%) of the school age
children were in school.
By 1974, primary school participation had increased at the national level
to about 90%, and dramatic gains had occurred in coastal districts. Still,
districts such as Kwale lagged far behind. In that year, it was estimated that
60% of the district's children were enrolled in primary schools (Ministry of
Education, 1984). Ten years later, despite a doubling of Kwale primary
school enrolment (from 31,258 to 62,227), the proportion of school-age
children in school was about the same (64%) (Ministry of Education, 1984).
However these enrolment data do not take account of the participation
of Muslim children in Koranic schooling, which is almost universal. Koranic
schools comprise a large parallel school system which government edu-
cational authorities, and before them colonial officials and missionaries,
regarded as a cause of the slow progress in increasing school participation
in coastal districts (Mambo, 1980, 118). Although the government schools
established for Arabs provided for instruction in Arabic and religious
subjects from 1924, this did not have much impact on school enrolments
outside Mombasa and Malindi in the colonial period. Since independence,
religious studies, including provision for Islamic studies, have been compul-
sory in Kenyan primary schools and were in 1984 made examinable subjects.
Summary
Coastal Kenya, notwithstanding its longer exposure to western cultures
and the early establishment of missionary schooling, was marginalized
The Implantation of Western Schooling in Coastal Kenya 53
economically, politically and educationally by the processes which, on one
hand, destroyed the slave-based plantation economy and, on the other,
transformed the interior of the colony into the locus of colonial devel-
opment. The Muslim population, or rather those deemed by colonial
authorities to be Arabs, derived a measure of autonomy from the coast's
protectorate status. This fostered the hope of obtaining political autonomy
at independence. Western schooling and wage labour were considered
activities suitable for freed slaves and "Africans". Coastal Muslims dis-
tanced themselves from these associations, and colonial racial policies
encouraged them to do so by maintaining the social position of the Arab
plantocracy long after its economic and political raison d'tre had dis-
appeared. This had three effects of lasting significance: first, it accelerated
Islamicization of the indigenous Mijikenda population; second, it under-
mined missionary and government efforts to increase school participation
and, finally, it left development initiatives to Europeans, Asians, and to other
Africans who were encouraged to settle on the coast.
CHAPTER 4
We went to it in the morning and sat cross legged near each other on this mat.
Each of us took his tablet from the box. My tablet was new since I was a beginner.
Our master had a monitor to help him write the tablets for the children and to
replace him when he was absent. He also helped him to stretch out a child's food
in the falaqa if need be. Every pupil read his tablet according to the degree of
learning: one read the alphabet, another the Opening Sura of the Quran, a third
the Sura of Blessed, and so on. When we finished reading a new lesson, we recited
the old ones. When lunch time arrived our master took a piaster, half a piaster,
or a millime from the boys, each according to his capability, and he sent the
Religious Education in a Secular Society 57
monitor to bring two gree, one of which had green beans in sauce, the other
pickels in s a u c e . . . . It did not matter that there might be some sick and some
healthy, some clean and some dirty, some polluted and some unpolluted among
the boys. For there was trust in G o d , and His blessing prevented contagion.
When we read we had to rock and shout. He who did not, got the stick and so
he shouted as he read and wept. We continued to do this until about the middle
of the afternoon. Then we went home (Boullata, 1975,97-8).
The verses provide several insights into the role of literacy in Islamic
education and in the Islamic faith. First, becoming literate is not a
discretionary act but a universal obligation of those who accept God's
instructions. Ikraa is stated in the imperative. Second, those who seek
literacy will have God's assistance and they will be rewarded for their
devotion with understanding. Literacy is, thus, not predicated upon individ-
ual ability nor for that matter is it explicitly associated with instruction.
Anyone can become literate if he possesses sufficient devotion, if he is willing
to heed the revealed word. Conversely, literacy is not valued as a cognitive
skill of general application; it is bound to an understanding of the Quran.
Literacy is acquired incidental to the main task which is to learn the Quran.
Third, the Quran, properly understood, allows for a single universalistic
interpretation. It is not meant as a statement of principles allowing varying
individual interpretations, especially those which might use the Quran as an
allegorical text denying it the status of the revealed word. This is crucial to
an understanding not only of sectarianism within Islam but also to an
appreciation of the importance of Arabic instruction in Muslim countries
60 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
where Arabic is not spoken. Socially, the use of Arabic gives unity to Islam
much in the same way that the Latin rites catholicized Christianity until the
Protestant Reformation, or as Hebrew served to foster Jewish identity until
the modern creation of the Jewish state, except that Latin and Hebrew were
priestly languages.
Moreover, the compilation of sacred texts in Christianity and Judaism
occurred over long periods of time, and in Christianity this involved
translation of texts at an early stage, giving rise to divergent interpretations
based on their authenticity. All Muslims accept the authenticity of the Quran
and its spiritual authority. Schisms developed initially along political rather
than along doctrinal lines, although doctrinal interpretations have emerged
to perpetuate sectarianism (Gibb, 1964, 120-22). The principal doctrinal
schism within Islam between adherents to Sunni and Shia theology has to
do with the institution of the Immamate and the authority of religious
leadership in matters of the doctrinal interpretation. Shias, to summarize
perhaps too simply, accept the theological guidance of a divinely inspired
Imam; Sunnis generally reject interpretative understandings of the faith.
Except for splinter Shia sects, among the most important of which are the
Ismaili followers of the Aga Khan, there is agreement that the Quran in
Arabic is the sole source of theological authority and that its meaning is
timeless and not illustrative or metaphorical.
Finally, attention is drawn in Ali's verses to the words orally revealed to
the Prophet, and set down in the Quran for the recitation of believers: Ikraa!
"Whether the Quran was written... in full during Mohammed's lifetime,"
Gibb remarks, "is a question on which there are conflicting traditions." He
adds that the "generally received account describes its first compilation a few
years after his death from 'scraps of parchment and leather, tablets of stone,
ribs of palm branches, camels' shoulder-blades and ribs, pieces of wood and
the breasts of men To this, probably, is to be ascribed much of the
unevenness and the rough joining which characterize the present com-
position of the longer suras" (Gibbs, 1964, 39). The Quran, which relates the
divine words revealed to the Prophet and preached to skeptics at Mecca and
to the new Muslim community at Medina, derives its poetry as well as its
persuasiveness from being read aloud from memory. This is the mechanism
by which the Prophet's preachings were retained by his companions until
they could be recorded, and then transmitted from one generation to the
next. It is significant that in Muslim thought, the Prophet is credited with
acquiring literacy, but it is unlikely that this also involved the capacity for
written expression.
Literacy is thought to diminish an individual's reliance on memory for
the storage and retrieval of information, and to bring about fundamental
changes in cognition which elevate reasoning over facility in recalling
information. The cognitive features of socially egalitarian, technologically
unsophisticated societies which transmit culture orally have been the subject
Religious Education in a Secular Society 61
Conclusion
In sum, Koranic schools in Kenya and elsewhere are under increasing
pressure to reconcile traditional practices with the modern pedagogy prop-
agated in state-supported school systems. But the extent to which Koranic
schools can reform what are now considered anachronistic practices and
preserve the philosophy of instruction that is associated with them is clearly
limited. The "informality" of Koranic education, for instance, is character-
istic of the Islamic faith which rejects the institutionalization of theology and
mass religious education. Similarly, no provision is made in Islam for
treating scriptures as anything other than sacred text. Public schools can
teach Islam as a religion, as another subject of instruction. Koranic schools
cannot without fundamental changes that would alienate many believers
who value the schools for their resistance to secular influences eminating
from the Christian West.
In Kenya in the colonial period, Koranic schools proliferated initially in
response to missionary activities in coastal areas, then later in an effort to
contain the expansion of secular schooling for the Arab population. For
many years these schools were largely unaffected by colonialism. This,
however, had more to do with the ambiguous status of the coastal
Protectorate and its underdevelopment in relation to areas of the colony
favoured for European settlement than with the inherent strengths of the
Koranic schools as instruments of cultural resistance. When independence
came and the Coast Province was fully integrated into the national political
system and economy, their situation changed unalterably. The modern
state's preoccupation with asserting authority at the local level at the expense
of traditional political structures and the implications of internal migration
are of particular importance to the future of Koranic schooling.
The government of Kenya, like many newly independent African States,
set out to dismantle the elaborate system of native administration and
"protection" of the ancestral homelands of aboriginal peoples which
colonialism had developed. Although the institution of the chieftainship that
the British transplanted to East Africa was retained, other instruments of
tribal administration such as the Local Native Councils were abolished by
the early 1970s when local political structures based on universal suffrage
were created. Significantly, educational requirements for office holders were
introduced at the local and national levels, effectively limiting the par-
Religious Education in a Secular Society 69
ticipation of traditional political elites in the new structures (Ole Sena, 1986).
The subsequent growth of primary schooling was instrumental not only for
demonstrating the capacity of the modern state to bring benefits to the
population in the form of increased access to wage/salary employment, but
as a means of integrating local communities into the political system.
More recently (1979) the government has promoted the establishment of
pre-schools by providing assistance for the construction of buildings, and
through its agents at the local level, chiefs and district officers, coercing
communities to raise Harambee funds to employ trained teachers. Educating
the pre-school population became a major function of the Koranic schools
in the 1970s as their full-time school age enrolment declined. Today the
ostensibly voluntary government supported pre-school education program
threatens the importance of Koranic schooling for this age group. By 1984
more than one hundred (142) pre-schools had been constructed in Kwale
district, for instance, an indication of how seriously the government has
promoted pre-school education in Muslim areas and elsewhere in the
country (Personal communication, Ministry of Education, 1985).
The implications of internal migration for the Koranic schools are perhaps
even more serious, though its impact is not as direct. When the government
opened the tribal reserves to settlement in the early 1970s, educationally
backward communities were adversely affected. They lost land to their more
prosperous countrymen who had schooling, jobs in the modern economy
and were attracted to areas where land could be obtained cheaply. To remain
a majority in their homelands, backward communities had to advance
educationally, and enter the modern economy. Internal migration created a
powerful incentive for school expansion in coastal districts and other
backward areas. Koranic schools were increasingly considered an impedi-
ment to "development" and, paradoxically, their protective functions have
been taken over by secular schooling.
CHAPTER 5
70
Literacy and Cognition 71
directed study. Information is segmented, reiterated to facilitate identifi-
cation of what is significant, and sequenced to foster comprehension.
Learning from instructional text is a self-conscious process, interrupted by
continual monitoring. This is accomplished by the arrangement of textbook
information into units with introductory reviews and culminating exercises,
and by the articulation of reading with oral instruction, drills and exercises.
At more advanced levels of instruction, students are exposed to formal
discourse whose didactic purposes are made less explicit; story books, for
example. These are usually intended to reinforce or to expand upon
classroom instruction and are not necessarily structured into the lesson
format familiar from the first years of schooling. By then, reading has been
transformed from the subject of instruction to an ancillary skill.
In urban, industrial societies, the performance of many activities in daily
life is based upon knowledge and skills acquired from formal instruction
and/or written texts. This is most apparent in work activities involving
machine technologiessecretarial and clerical work, for instanceand in
most forms of employment associated with complex organizations of
production, entry to which is dependent upon completion of various levels
of schooling. It is also evident in the importance of instructional texts,
even for acquiring skills like cooking, child rearing, and facility in other
languages, that only recently have been thought to necessitate literacy or
considered to be appropriate for formal instruction. In sum, the comprehen-
sion of instructional text in school-like learning situations is central to
literacy in a modern society.
In peasant societies, literacy has more restricted uses. Few written texts
are available, apart from the literature produced by the state for internal
administration and for governance. Much of this literature is published in
a language which is not indigenous to the country and has been retained
from the colonial period, not only for administration and governance, but
also for schooling. This is the situation in Kenya and many African
countries. English is the language of the modern sector, of national and
international commerce, of national political institutions, including the
judiciary and secondary schools and national institutions of higher learning,
as well as of instruction in the upper stage of the primary cycle. The
connections between English literacy and peasant life are, however, very
oblique. The most widely circulated English texts are the English instructions
which accompany manufactured goods.
Among the indigenous languages, Kiswahili, the country's official lan-
guage after independence, is the most widely spoken and has the most
developed printed literature. Kiswahili texts are used in all standards of the
primary school. Still, the most widely available Kiswahili texts are trans-
lations of government documents and political discourse that appears in
newspapers and in commercial advertisements and instructions. Other local
languagesthere are more than thirty recognized languages and major
72 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
dialectsdo not have a significant printed literature, with the possible
exceptions of Kikuyu and Somali. Thus, English literacy provides access to
participation in the modern sector and to the material benefits which modern
technology affords. Kiswahili links the thin, fragile modern sector in urban
areas to the countryside where most of the population lives. While literacy
in English or Kiswahili permeates urban life, in rural areas the functional
uses of literacy are twofold: first, for important communications with
government, including the purchase of land and obtaining credit, and,
second, for utilizing a wide range of consumer goods and government
services. Literacy has little to do with subsistence agriculture or with much
of peasant agriculture generally.
Students in rural areas have limited exposure to textbooks, which are
supplied by the national government to district centres in limited quantities
and from there to individual schools. The lack of textbooks has a profound
influence on teaching. In classrooms, information presented in printed texts
is communicated orally through dictation or class recitation, usually for
transcription into exercise books. Although the textbooks used in Kenyan
schools presume opportunities for self-study, this seldom occurs. Moreover,
school reading is circumscribed by the content of lessons which are
prescribed in the syllabus of studies and taught for the national
examinations.
In Muslim societies in Kenya, literacy has an importance that has little
to do with examinations, government or the modern sector. Arabic literacy
is essential for participation in religious and communal activities. In contrast
to school-acquired literacy in English or a vernacular language, Arabic
literacy, though it is disconnected from many ordinary events, is continually
reinforced by religious observance. Arabic text is read, studied and recited
on a daily basis.
Literacy in Arabic and in school languages can be considered to be
functionally separate and appropriate to different domains of daily life. The
secular knowledge that is transmitted through school instruction is thought
to influence a wide range of behaviours that improve human welfare. An
example might be better nutrition. School instruction on the relationship of
diet to health may be retained in the form of an understanding of principles
of nutrition (such as the need for a diet that is balanced in terms of the
consumption of vegetables, cereals and animal products) which, in turn,
guide food preparation in the home. School texts in this example impart the
knowledge necessary to change nutritional practices. Oral instruction,
especially reviews, drills and exercises, facilitates the storing of text-based
knowledge in memory. Teacher questioning, project work, examinations and
other evaluative activities ensure that appropriate inferences are drawn. The
actual application of these inferences is, of course, beyond the scrutiny of
the school. Thus, the performance of students on tasks requiring a written
or oral production must be assumed to measure how well they have
Literacy and Cognition 73
Standard One
1. Reading and Writing: The child should be taught to read and write
Koranic script.
2. Memorization: The child should be made to learn by heart the following
suras and understand the meaning (not translation) of their verses: Al
Fatihah; AI Ikhalas and Kalimah.
3. The History of Islam: (a) Prophet Mohammad's family members...
4. Moral Teaching: (a) When to say Bismillahi...
5. Fiqhi: (a) How to perform absolution . . .
(from Islamic Religious Education Syllabus for Primary Schools, Kenya
Institute of Education, n.d.)
Since most primary school teachers do not know Arabic well enough to
teach it, and since many children enter school with a knowledge of the key
suras, there is less likelihood of duplication than the syllabus suggests. A
more serious concern to those who have traditionally been responsible for
religious instruction is that the meaning of the scriptures will be explained
in the vernacular to children too young to understand Arabic, diminishing
the importance of Arabic as a sacred language and the need to attend the
Madrassa in order to acquire it. Consequently, instruction in the madrassas
must emphasize the centrality of Arabic to religious learning by making it
a tool for understanding the correct meaning of Koranic text.
The teaching of Islam in government schools is largely responsible for
formalizing language learning in the madrassas and also for formalizing
other aspects of instruction. The madrassa in the village of Bomani illustrates
the extent to which some have self-consciously imitated government primary
schools in the Msambweni area. Almost two hundred children attend the
madrassa, which since 1985 has introduced a "kindergarten" and organized
instruction into levels corresponding to the children's chronological age and
placement in government schools. The period of instruction has been divided
into six-month terms, at the end of which the children will take a written
and an oral examination to determine whether they should be promoted to
the next standard. A syllabus for six years of instruction is being prepared.
This will culminate in an examination and successful performance will earn
a certificate. Arabic will be taught as a language and a trained Arabic teacher
has been engaged for this purpose. In kindergarten, children will learn the
Arabic alphabet and the basic prayers (dua) in both Arabic and Kiswahili.
In the following term, suras will be taught; the longer, more difficult, more
theologically complex suras in the final terms of the instructional cycle. The
timetable developed for Standard II level classes is given below:
Saturday
7:30-8:45 a.m. Recitation of Prayers from the Quran
Literacy and Cognition 77
8:45-9:15 a.m. Lugha (Arabic grammar and translation from Arabic
to Kiswahili)
9:15-10:30 a.m. Break
10:30-11:00 a.m. Hadith (Sayings of the Prophet)
11:00-12:00 p.m. Revision
2:00-3:45 p.m. Fiqhi
3:45-4:00 p.m. Moral Education
The structure of the timetable and even the organization of subject matter
is similar to what a school-age child would experience in school in religious
education classes.
The curricula of the traditional madrassa is compelling in its simplicity.
There are four stages of instruction: (1) the Arabic alphabet; (2) instruction
in the first four suras from Sura Al Fathiha and in the shorter suras to Sura
Amma, (3) Sura Fatha to the last sura, and (4) Ilmu, instruction by question
and answers, mainly on the meaning of the first four suras in Arabic and
Kiswahili, as in the Roman catechism. Ethics, Islamic genealogy, and
history, are embedded in these subjects and dealt with whenever the Mwalim
feels that such instruction will be useful. A child progresses from one stage
of instruction to the next if his Mwalim has determined that he is ready.
Children are grouped into beginning, intermediate and advanced levels,
often within a classroom, irrespective of their chronological age. A child's
studies are monitored through individual recitation. When a child is unable
to recite a passage from the Quran, he is invited to join the class in reciting
the text. He is seldom admonished for poor performance. Use of the switch
is reserved for lack of attentiveness and behaviour which distracts other
children. Instances of misbehaviour are very rare, despite the large number
of childrenmore than seventy in some madrassas in Msambweniand the
presence of many pre-school children. Indeed, the contrast between the
orderly instruction of children in madrassas and chaotic behaviour of
the same children in primary schools is striking.
The Mwalim, sitting at the front of the classroom, acts more like a choral
director than a school teacher in organizing learning activities. Groups of
children read aloud passages they have been asked to study. The entire class
is often asked to change verses which the Mwalim feels have been imperfectly
mastered or are important to emphasize. The changing of Koranic verses in
unison is mesmerizing, transporting children (and their Mwalim) into an
almost trance-like condition.
All instruction involves chanting to facilitate learning, starting with the
learning of the Arabic alphabet, which is read from the blackboard not as
individual letters but as parts of words and phrases from the Quran:
Here the teacher spells out consonants, connects them to vowels to make
syllables and eventually forms a word. The Arabic words are assembled into
sequential verses. Then the couplet is read from the blackboard. When
children are able to read the couplet without difficulty another verse is intro
duced. Children will proceed this way until they have learned to read a sura,
dua or a passage from the Hadith. As soon as they master the Arabic script
and have developed a rudimentary vocabulary, the children will be given
more lengthy passages to read and recite from the first verse. Instruction
follows a similar pattern. A verse is read aloud, chanted, another is intro-
duced and the children are directed to combine them in recitation. New
vocabulary and grammatical structures are not explained. Children do not
seek the Mwalim 's assistance in understanding Koranic text. Only the Hadith,
which are the core of moral instruction, are discussed in the sense that their
meaning may be summarized, though the sayings are seldom translated.
When sacred knowledge is taught in translation, a word for word
translation is provided, as in this example taken from a lesson in moral
education on the pillars of Islam:
Secular Instruction
(In English) If you do good, you do it for yourself, if you do bad you do
it to yourself. Amen. (Prayer recited by school children in Msambweni.)
This prayer, like the ones recited before instruction begins in the madras-
sas, will remind school children that learning is an opportunity rather than
a moral obligation, and that it is an individual enterprise not a communal
activity. The child is made completely responsible for his performance at
school. If he finds himself among the more than 70% of the primary school
age pupils who do not successfully complete school, it is because he has not
done enough for himself.
There are three government primary schools in Msambweni, the oldest
being the one in the village of Mwaembe established in the early 1930s for
the children of government officials and hospital workers from up-country.
In 1985, the school had an enrolment of about 750 students and a staff of
16 teachers. Although the school had eighteen streams of instruction, there
is only one Standard VIII stream with 55 students who will take the new
Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examination later this year (1985).
In 1983, 33 students took the Certificate of Primary Education examination
that was given to Standard VII students; almost half (17) passed, seven of
80 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
them earning a place in government secondary schools. Weak candidates are
not encouraged to take the school leaving examination, and they are
counselled to drop out of the upper standards to which the trained teachers
are assigned. Many students also drop out on their own initiative.
The drop out rate is particularly high among girls. While the ratio of girls
to boys is nearly 1:1 in the lower standards, it declines to 1:2 in the final
three standards at this and other primary schools in Msambweni. Marriage
and pregnancy seem to be the chief causes of female attrition. Girls enroll
in primary school in Msambweni at a somewhat later age in comparison to
girls elsewhere in the country and are marriageable before they enter
Standards VII and VIII. Payment of bride-price is a deterrent to marriage
and female attrition. However, Digo custom makes provision for adolescent
couples to live together if a girl is found to be pregnant. In such instances,
the young man's father pays a fine for the girl's violation, and promises to
pay the full bride-price at a later date. The children from such a union belong
to the girl's family until a marriage contract is agreed upon. Consequently,
impregnating a schoolgirl is often the first step toward an eventual marriage.
School teachers are sometimes responsible. They are only a few years older
than many girls of primary school age, having completed four years of
post-primary education before entering teaching, and as salaried govern-
ment employees teachers enjoy high status in rural areas.
Jomo Kenyatta Primary School, the newest school in the Msambweni
area, was erected in memory of the country's first president who died there
in 1978. Construction of the present tile-roofed buildings was made possible
by a foreign donor, and the school was opened by President Moi in 1981.
Its facilities are comparable to those of the best primary schools in Nairobi.
The school compound comprises several bungalows for the families of staff,
playing fields and assembly areas, and the grounds are landscaped with
jacaranda in the style of some of the government-maintained secondary
schools. The new school was built on the site of Bomani Primary School
which was established in 1972. Jomo Kenyatta Primary School recruits
students from the Msambweni area, especially from families of government
workers living in the village of Mwaembe, who used to send their children
to Msambweni Primary School. A proposal is being considered by the
Ministry of Education to transform the institution into a residential national
school. This would increase enrolment from the more educationally advan-
taged districts.
About eight hundred students were attending the school in 1985. It is
among the best schools in Kwale district in terms of student performance
on the school leaving examinations. Almost three quarters (74%) of the 43
students taking the 1983 Certificate of Primary Education examination
achieved a mark high enough to enable them to go on to secondary school.
The examination results are posted on a bulletin board in the headmistress's
office for perusal by visitors.
Literacy and Cognition 81
Yet despite its modern facilities and the high proportion of trained
teachers (three quarters of the staff of sixteen), Jomo Kenyatta Primary
School is like many rural schools in important respects. Class sizes in the
lower standards exceed fifty per stream, 20% above the Ministry of
Education norm. This situation has worsened in the past year due to the
addition of Standard VIII classes and the lack of funds to replace staff on
pregnancy leave. Moreover, there is a chronic shortage of textbooks and
only a few parents, mainly those in government employment, can afford to
purchase books for their children.
Vengujini Primary School is the smallest school in Msambweni. Estab-
lished in 1978, it has about four hundred students and twelve teachers, all
but four of them lacking teacher training credentials. The school's buildings
are made of mud and wattle except for the Standard VIII classrooms and
workshops which have a stone foundation and will have concrete floors and
tin roofs if funds can be found to complete construction, which was halted
several months ago. Alongside the school is a plot of land used to
demonstrate modern agricultural practices, chiefly row planting of maize,
and separation of crops to facilitate frequent weeding.
Uniform-clad children arrive at school before 8:00 a.m. and assemble
around a flagpole in the school yard. Many teachers do not arrive until
much later, some travelling by matatus (minibuses) to the vicinity of
school and others, including the headmaster, walking from distant villages.
Teacher absences are especially high after weekends and school holidays
when teachers visit their families. On such occasions, the children are
often sent out of class to play so that the staff can meet with the headmaster
to discuss how instructional responsibilities can be reallocated to adjust
for teacher absences. This is a contentious issue among the staff who
sometimes are responsible for more than forty-five thirty-minute periods
of instruction per week, and, in addition, have to mark student exercise
books.
Teachers sit at student desks in the small staff room outside the head-
master's office, between stacks of textbooks discarded from previous years
which are still used in class preparations. Students have no desks and for
most subjects in most classes they have to share the only textbook. For some
subjects, such as Home Science, the teacher does not even have the text
which is currently adopted for use by the Ministry of Education, nor has the
school received copies of the present syllabus for this subject. The shortage
of syllabi and textbooks is a serious concern this year as students enrolled
in the new Standard VIII program will be examined in all subjects of
instruction. Although instructional conditions are more impoverished at
Vengujini Primary School than at other schools in Msambweni, its students
do no worse on the school leaving examinations. Fifteen of the 35 students
taking the Certificate of Primary Education examination passed it and eight
secured places in government secondary schools.
82 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
Classroom Life
Teacher: (In Kiswahili) Which word do we write with the letter "M?"
Students: Mwalimu (Teacher).
Teacher: Thank you. When you write Mwalimu you must use " M "
(writing the word on the blackboard). Do you see Mwalimu?
Are you looking?... Then there is "W". It must touch the
line. Who can say this word?
Student: Mwalimu.
Teacher: Let's all say it.
26. During a nature walk, pupils passed through a swamp near the school.
Which one of the following diseases are they most likely to contract?
A. Bilharzia B. Rickets
C. Kwashiorkor D. Smallpox
(KNEC, Sample Papers, 63).
Much may be lost between dictation and transcription, and there is much
scope for confusing descriptive with explanatory information when the
teacher summarizes the main points of the passage and the accompanying
illustrations, which are also to be entered in the exercise book:
Main Points
The summaries are used to construct fill-in-the-blank drills, e.g. The lever
is ; The lever works best when the is near to the load and
far from the effort, etc. Unfortunately, these exercises are unlikely to prepare
Literacy and Cognition 85
a student to answer successfully the lever question from the KCPE Science
Sample Paper, in which students must estimate the movement of two blocks
of equal weight balanced on a fulcrum, one hung from a rope passing
through inverse pulleys from which a bucket of water will be suspended.
Fill-in-the-blank exercises provide little opportunity for the student to
develop an understanding of the principles that an answer to this question
requires.
Recent examination papers have included more questions requiring
candidates to "reason and apply the knowledge that they have gained", and
fewer that test "the mere ability to recall the facts memorized in school"
(KNEC, 1983, 1). These questions pose special difficulties for students in
schools like those in Msambweni.
Study Design
An experiment was designed to examine not only the possible effects of
Koranic education, but also the influence of the language and type of text
on comprehension. Children with four or more years of instruction at
Madrassa Chiuriro were randomly assigned to two groups, each consisting
of six children (see Table 6). The first group received religious texts in Arabic
and were asked questions in their mother tongue, Kiswahili, which elicited
information on their ability to recall and make inferences from the material.
The second group was given the same text and questions in Kiswahili. In
addition, a third group of children in Standard VII at Vengujini Primary
School who had completed Koranic education received religious texts in
English and Kiswahili, and science texts in these languages as well. This
group was composed of three subgroups with two members. Each subgroup
received religious and science texts under one of three language conditions:
English texts and English questions, English texts and Kiswahili questions,
and Kiswahili texts with Kiswahili questions. The three language conditions
replicate the uses of these languages in classrooms. In the first three
standards children study in Kiswahili. From Standard IV they read English
texts and English is the medium of instruction, with Kiswahili often used for
clarification and explanation.
Eighteen Standard VII students with less than two years of experience
of Koranic education were randomly assigned to the three groups of six
Literacy and Cognition 87
subjects receiving English and Kiswahili texts under the conditions described
above. Unfortunately, it was not possible to compare Standard VII children
at this school who had finished or were finishing their Koranic education
with those with minimal exposure to such education. Again, only six children
in Standard VII had obtained a Koranic education in any meaningful
sense.
TABLE 6
Number of Madrassa and School Test Administrations by Language
of Texts
Texts
Number of Administrations: Religious Science
Language of texts/questions
Arabic/Kiswahili 6 (0) None
Kiswahili/Kiswahili 6 (8)* 0 (8)*
English/Kiswahili 0 (8)* 0 (8)*
English/English 0 (8)* 0 (8)*
Note: Figures in parentheses indicate number of administrations to
Standard VII students.
Including two Standard VII students who completed four or more
years of madrassa.
Instrumentation
Two sets of texts were administered under the various language con-
ditions. The first set of religious texts consisted of suras Fatiha and Humazah
from the Quran. Sura Fatiha, the first sura in the Quran, has seven verses
and is learned by all Muslims. It summarizes the principles of the faith and
is used in daily prayers:
SURA FATIHA
1. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
2. All praise be to you, Allah, Lord of the World.
3. Most Gracious and Most Merciful.
4. Master of the Day of Judgement.
5. You alone do we worship, and you alone do we ask for help.
6. Show us the straight way.
7. The way of those you have favoured, and not the way of those who
have gone out of the right way.
Sura Humazah presents moral teachings applying the principles of the faith
to everyday life. The text of this sura is slightly longer in its complete form
than Sura Fatiha. A shorter version of Sura Humazah was used to make the
two suras comparable in length and coherence:
88 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
SURA HUMAZAH
1. Severe punishment will go the backbiter and teller of lies.
2. Who piles up his wealth just for himself without using it in the right
way.
3. And he thinks being rich would make him live for ever.
4. No! He will be thrown into a blazing flame called Hutama.
5. And what will make you know what that blazing fire is?
6. It is the blazing fire from Allah.
Sura Humazah, like many other suras in the Quran which deal with ethical
matters, may be interpreted narrowly in terms of what behaviours are
inconsistent with the way of life God has prescribed for believers, or it may
be given more subtle, broader meanings. The sura not only advises, for
instance, that backbiting and wealth may be morally corrupting, but also
that any behaviours which have their origins in selfishness and enviousness
will be punished by a vigilant God on the Day of Judgement.
Sura Humazah is familiar to most Muslims as verses from it are popular
subject matter for the Friday darassa, and children in the madrassas learn
to read and recite the sura in Arabic. However, Sura Humazah is not taught
in Kiswahili, as is the case of the first four suras. Suras Fatiha and Humazah
were chosen to contrast comprehension of religious texts differing in their
familiarity from religious instruction. They are, in addition, mentioned in the
Islamic religion syllabus used for teaching this subject in government
primary schools, Sura Fatiha for Standard I and Sura Humazah in Standard
V (K.I.E., n.d., 2 and 8). At the Standard V level an English oral translation
of the suras would be used for instructional purposes while Kiswahili
explanations are given in Standards IIII.
Children attending Madrassa Chiuriro received Arabic and Kiswahili
translations of the two suras while the Standard VII students were given
Kiswahili and English versions.
Children enrolled in Standard VII at Vengujini Primary School also
received a set of science texts dealing with the filtration of water. Water
filtration is considered in Science and in Home Science instruction. Water-
borne diseases are a serious health problem in Msambweni and elsewhere
in Kenya. At the Msambweni District Hospital, for example, more than two
thousand cases (2,285) of diarrhoeal diseases were reported in 1984, and
more than six hundred (626) cases of diagnosed schistosomiasis. Such
diseases rank behind malaria (20,435) as the most common illnesses in
Msambweni (District Hospital Annual Report, 1984). Most water in the
area is brackish or stagnant and bilharzia infested. The government,
recognizing the seriousness of the situation, has with Japanese assistance
constructed safe water wells along the south coast. One is located at
Literacy and Cognition 89
Vengujini Primary School. But a pump could not be installed because
children had thrown rocks in the bore hole.
The subject of filtration is treated in the Standard VI syllabus in a context
of investigating "substances which do not dissolve in water". Students are
to perform an experiment in which a water filter of several layers is used to
trap sedimentation (FE Modern Science Activity Book V, 18). The prin-
ciples of water filtration are considered in Standards V, VI and VII, and the
necessity of clean water in the Health Science text, which is used in Standards
VII and VIII and begins with this serious note: "Lack of knowledge of the
rules of health can bring death to your family" (Threadgold and Wellborn,
Health in the Home, p. vii). Moreover, knowledge of water filtration is tested
in the Certificate of Primary Education examination. The 1982 Mock CPE
General paper, for instance, contains the question, "One can use soil to
make dirty water clean. Which diagram below shows how soil should be
arranged in cut bottles placed upside down to make a good filter?" Layers
of pebbles, coarse and fine sand, and cotton are varied in the diagrams
(Ministry of Basic Education, 1983, p. 15). This example was used to
compose two texts on water filtration which were similar to narrative
passages about water filtration in school textbooks and to descriptions of
procedures to carry out related classroom experiments. The two experi-
mental texts are given below:
FILTRATION OF WATER
1. Water often contains impurities.
2. These impurities are particles in the water that cause disease.
3. But they can be removed.
4. Passing water containing particles through layers of rock, sand and
cotton removes most of the particles.
5. These layers are called a filter.
6. Different sized particles are removed by different layers.
7. Larger particles are removed by larger stones and small particles by
sand and cotton.
8. It is good to remove particles in stages; first the larger particles are
removed and then the smaller ones.
9. Water passed through such a filter becomes cleaner.
10. After boiling, the water will be safe to drink.
and
These science texts are analogous to the religious texts discussed above in
two respects. First, each set contains one text presenting explanatory
principles and another which shows how they may be applied. Second,
although the subject matter of the texts was familiar to students, each set
included a text that was somewhat less familiar, Sura Humazah and How
to Construct a Filter being the least familiar of the texts. Standard VII
students at Vengujini Primary School had been instructed about water
filtration, but had not performed the sedimentation experiment. Similarly,
a lesson on Sura Humazah had not been taught in religious education classes.
English and Kiswahili versions of the science texts were prepared and
administered to the twenty-four students in Standard VII at Vengujini
Primary School. Thus, three groups of six students received religious and
science texts in English with English questions, in English with Kiswahili
questions, or in Kiswahili with Kiswahili questions. A fourth group who had
attended the madrassa for four or more years were administered both sets
of texts under the three language conditions. The two groups of students
from Madrassa Chiuriro received only the Arabic and Kiswahili versions of
the religious texts, although all were enrolled in a government primary
school. Science texts were not administered to these children because it was
not known whether they had been instructed on the subject of water
filtration.
Four types of questions were used to elicit information on text compre-
hension: questions requiring: 1. Recall of factual information with the text
present; 2. Recall of such information without the text; 3. Inferences from
propositions within the text; and 4. Inferences from a related text. The
experimenter, a woman who formerly lived in the area and attended school
there, carried out the test administration from a script beginning with a series
of questions obtaining biographic information from the subject. Children
were asked to read the texts aloud before answering questions about them.
They could respond in any language, even if questions were put to them in
English and no time limitations were placed on their answers. The test
Literacy and Cognition 91
instruments were administered either at Madrassa Chiuriro or at Vengujini
Primary School when instruction normally takes place, to minimize the
artificiality of the experimental situation. Administrations usually required
from 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
1. Madrassa Chiuriro
1.1 Arabic/Kiswahili 8.7 0.5 8.7 1.2 8.7 0.8
( N = 6)
1.2 Kiswahili/Kiswahili 6.5 1.9 8.0 1.5 7.2 1.5
( N = 6)
2. Standard VII Students
2.1 Kiswahili/Kiswahili 6.9 1.2 7.8 1.8 7.3 1.1
( N = 6)
2.2 English/Kiswahili 6.2 0.9 6.4 1.4 6.3 0.8
( N = 6)
2.3 English/English 3.2 0.7 3.5 1.8 3.3 0.7
( N = 6)
3. One-way Anova F = 16.4* 9.9*** 20.3***
*p < 0.05
**p<0.01
* * * p < 0.001
Note: 10 equals perfect score.
TABLE 8
Rated Comprehension of Science Texts by Language of Administration
TEXT
Principles of H o w to Construct
Filtration a Filter Both
N o . of N o . of N o . of
items: 8 items: 8 items: 16
Language of
Administration M SD M SD SD
1. Kiswahili/Kiswahili 7.8 1.3 8.4 1.0 8.1 1.1
( N = 6)
2. English/Kiswahili 5.7 1.1 4.0 1.0 4.8 0.8
( N = 6)
3. English/English 3.3 1.5 2.5 0.5 2.9 0.9
( N = 6)
4. One-way Anova F = 16.0* ** 68.*s*** 41.6***
*p < 0.05.
**p<0.01.
* * * p < 0.001.
Note: 10 equals perfect score.
TABLE 9
1
Inference Scores by Subjects' Education and Language of Administration
Religious texts Science texts Both
Number of Number of Number of
Education and items: 7 items: 8 items: 15
Language of
Administration M SD M SD M SD
1. Completed or completing
madrassa
1.1 Arabic/Kiswahili 7.0 1.6 N.A. N.A.
( N = 6)
1.2 Kiswahili/Kiswahili 8.9 0.7 N.A. N.A.
( N = 6)
2. Standard VII Students
(N-6)
2.1 Kiswahili/Kiswahili 6.2 1.8 7.1 1.9 6.7 1.1
(N-6)
2.2 English/Kiswahili 5.1 1.8 4.1 1.5 4.6 1.2
( N = 6)
2.3 English/English 2.6 0.6 2.3 0.7 2.4 0.6
( N = 6)
3. One-way Anova F = 15.6* ** 15.9*** 24.7***
*p<0.05.
**p<0.01.
* * * p < 0.001.
Note: 10 equals perfect score.
recall questions are deleted from the comprehension scores for the suras (see
Table 9). Children attending Madrassa Chiuriro still score the highest (8.9),
but those receiving Kiswahili translations of the suras do better on inference
tasks than those given the Arabic texts (8.9 versus 7.0). The higher score of
the Arabic/Kiswahili group, reported in Table 7, is due to their superior
performance on recall questions. However, madrassa children still do well
in making inferences from Arabic texts which they are taught to memorize,
and in the case of Sura Humazah, do not translate.
Among Standard VII students the ability to make inferences from religion
and science texts decreases significantly with the transition to English text
and English questions, particularly from English/Kiswahili to English/
English, even though, to reiterate, these are the conditions under which such
texts are to be comprehended in the classroom.
Six students who were enrolled in Standard VII at Vengujini Primary
School had completed Koranic education, enabling a comparison of stu-
dents with similar school experiences that differ in their exposure to religious
instruction (See Table 10). Because of the small number of subjects for each
language condition mean scores cannot be compared statistically. Never-
theless, the scores may provide some interesting insights into the effects of
Koranic learning.
94 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
T A B L E 10
Rated Comprehension of Standard VII Students Completing Madrassa by
Type and Language of Text
Standard VII Students
Completing Madrassa
Text and Language of = 6
Administration: M
Religious Texts
1.1 Kiswahili/Kiswahili (N = 2) 8.7
1.2 English/Kiswahili ( N = 2) 8.1
1.3 English/English ( N = 2) 5.8
1.4 All Administrations (N = 6) 7.5
1.5 Inference Items ( N = 6) 7.3
Science Texts
2.1 Kiswahili/Kiswahili (N = 2) 7.8
2.2 English/Kiswahili ( N = 2) 7.1
2.3 English/English ( N = 2) 5.0
2.4 All Administrations ( N = 6) 6.6
2.5 Inference Items ( N = 6) 5.9
Both Texts
3.1 All items (N = 6) 7.1
3.2 Inference only (N = 6) 6.6
Note: 10 equals perfect score.
Comprehension scores for the religion and science texts are almost as high
or higher than those for any other group under all language conditions. They
are especially high in comparison to comprehension scores of students with
less than two years of Koranic education under the English/English con-
dition (5.8 compared to 3.3 for religious texts, for instance, see Table 10).
T A B L E 11
Rated Comprehension of Texts by Subjects' Education
Four or more years Less than 2 years
in Madrassa in Madrassa
M SD M SD F =
N = 18 N = 18
Texts:
1. Religious
1.1 All Items 7.8 1.6 5.6 1.9 13.3***
1.2 Inference Items 7.7 1.8 4.6 2.1 21.8***
Only
N = 6 N = 18
2. Science
2.1 All Items 6.6 2.4 5.3 2.3 N.A.
2.2 Inference Items 5.9 2.2 4.5 2.4 N.A.
Only
*p<0.05.
**p<0.01.
* * * p < 0.001.
Note: 10 equals perfect score.
Literacy and Cognition 95
The total scores of students completing madrassa on the science texts are also
higher except under the Kiswahili/Kiswahili condition where the difference
is very small (7.8 versus 8.1, see Table 7). The study of Arabic text may
accelerate the language development of children, preparing them for the
transition from Kiswahili to English in school. In addition, skills developed
in comprehending Koranic text in the madrassa may be transferred to an
understanding of secular scientific school texts.
The data reported in Table 11 compares children with four or more years
of Koranic education with those spending less than two years in a madrassa.
The results for the Arabic, English and Kiswahili administrations have been
combined. Children who completed or are in the process of completing
Koranic studies scored higher on both sets of texts, and did much better at
answering the questions requiring inferences from and between texts.
The differences between these groups in comprehension scores is as large
for the science as it is for the religious texts, although the science results
cannot be compared statistically.
Discussion
Three findings that can be drawn from these data are of special im-
portance: first, that children who have undergone a traditional course of
instruction in a madrassa develop an understanding of the meaning of
religious texts which they have learned in Arabic by recitation; second, that
such children may acquire from a disciplined study of the Quran skills in
comprehending other kinds of written texts in another language and, third,
that comprehension declines when children are presented with texts and
questions in a language used orily for school instruction and examination.
These findings which will be discussed below require serious qualification.
Only a small number of subjects were studied to control for the variability
of secular and religious education in Msambweni. Moreover, all subjects
received some religious instruction in a madrassa; all Muslim children in
Msambweni attend such institutions before they enter government schools,
although few stay to complete the course of instruction. Thus, it was not
possible to select Muslim children without a madrassa education or who
attended madrassa but were not enrolled in school, which would have
strengthened the experimental design and the findings relating to the effects
of religious instruction. Nor was it possible to obtain a large enough number
of Standard VII students at Vengujini Primary School who had completed
their Koranic education, better to study the comprehension of religious and
scientific texts under various language conditions.
Children who receive a lengthy Koranic education are increasingly
exceptional. Their families are similar to others in Msambweni in terms of
ownership of land and livestock, participation in the market economy, and
in matters of religious observance. They are not more "traditional" in any
96 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
obvious sense. However, they may well place more value on Koranic
learning and give more encouragement to their children to finish studies in
the madrassa. Since Koranic teachers do not formally evaluate a child's
performance for the purpose of deciding whether instruction should be
continued, it is difficult to determine what is special about those who
complete their studies. It is unlikely that they have a greater aptitude for
learning than children who leave the madrassa when they enroll in school.
There are many factors which influence whether a child will continue
Koranic education that have little to do with his performance, including the
ability of his family to make even the modest financial contributions which
madrassas require; e.g. parental satisfaction with the methods of instruction,
especially concerns about the use of corporal punishment and parental
beliefs about the importance of such instruction for the child's future.
Interviewer: (In Kiswahili) Now I give you Sura al Fatiha to read aloud.
Please read it to me.
Hamisi: (Reads Sura al Fatiha in Arabic)
Interviewer: Now I want you to look at Sura al Fatiha and tell me which
lines give the answer to some questions. Each line has a
Literacy and Cognition 97
number. In which verse does it say that we should seek
God's help?
Hamisi: Verse 5. (You alone do we worship, and you alone do we
ask for help.)
Interviewer: . . . In which verse does it say God will decide whether we
are good or bad?
Hamisi: Verse 7. (The way of those you favoured, and not the way
of those who have gone out of the right way.)
Many children identified Verse 4 which refers to Allah as Master of the Day
of Judgement in answering this question. But Verse 7 is also correct, and is
a more subtle interpretation of the question. God will decide on the Day
of Judgement to favour those who have followed the straight path.
Interviewer: Now let's put Sura Fatiha away for the moment so that I
can ask you some questions to answer from memory...
According to this sura, what do we ask God to show us?
Hamisi: We ask him to show us the straight path. (Hamisi's answer
paraphrases verse 6: Show us the straightway.)
Interviewer: . . . Now I'm going to give back to you the Sura al
Fatiha... you may look at the text to answer the ques-
tions . . . Why do we ask for God's help?
Hamisi: Because it is he whom we worship. (Hamisi spontaneously
recites verse 5; You alone do we worship, and you alone do
we ask for help.)
Teacher: . . . (In English) Now there are many ways one can make
drinking water pure. Is it clear?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: And when it comes for the time to use it (water) you add lime
or other chemicals to make it clean from germs. Is it clear?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: Kill the germs, then drink it. So let's take the second way,
filtration . . . We can purify water through filtration . . . We are
going to perform one simple experiment (to show) how we can
purify water for drinking... Now this water is very clean as
you can see i t . . . This is sand, I'm going to mix this sand with
this water. This is how water sometimes behaves when it is
laying on the ground. Now I'm going to make a filter to purify
this water. Is it clear?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: Now this (holding up a piece of paper) is a filter... see how
I am going to purify this water . . . (pours sandy water through
the filter). Now inside the filter paper what remains is a soily
100 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
substance... what remains in the filter paper is known as
residue, say residue.
Students: Residue.
Teacher: Again.
Students: Residue!
Teacher: Now water has passed through the filter paper to the container
and you can see the water is very pure. If you want to take
this water to make it safe for drinking you just add lime. Lime?
Students: Lime!
Teacher: Or you can add bleaching powder (Chlorine).
Students: Bleaching powder!
At the end of the class the students were given this exercise to complete:
The filtered water you can make clean by putting or to
kill . The "correct" answers are bleaching powder, lime and
germs. This sufficed for instruction in principles of filtration. What is taught,
instead, is English vocabulary loosely connected to the topic of the lesson
and presented as discrete items of information. That students in this class
would probably find it difficult to relate water filtration to the use of lime
and chlorine is fortunate, as an application of what they have been taught
might be harmful.
Having dealt with filtration in a general way the teacher drew a diagram
of a water filter on the blackboard which was taken from an old CPE sample
paper. The layers of the water filter were similar to the ones described in how
to construct a filter except that a fine wire gauze was mentioned as a
substitute for cotton.
Teacher: (In English). You take a drum . . . (and make a hole in the
bottom). Put a wire gauze or cotton (pointing to the hole at
the bottom of the drum). Then you add gravel, coarse and fine
sand and then you put water. When water goes through that
hole it will be clear. Is it clear?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: When we get the water there, that water is very safe for
drinking...
Interviewer: (In English) Now I want you to look at Sura Fatiha... now
tell m e . . . in which verse does it say that we should seek
God's help (silence, question repeated).
Mohammed: Number 3.
The third verse simply refers to God as most gracious and most merciful.
Slightly more difficult questions sometimes could not be answered at all.
Interviewer: You can look at the text to help you answer the ques-
tion . . . why do we ask for God's help?
(Question repeated.)
Mohammad: Beg your pardon.
Interviewer: Why do we ask for God's help?
Mohammad: I don't know.
102 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
Interviewer: What will happen to us if we do bad things? (Question
repeated.)
Mohammad: I don't know.
Interviewer: What does this sura say about God's judgement?
Mohammad: Number 4.
Mohammad answers the last question by matching the word judgement with
the fourth verse, (Master of the Day of Judgement) rather than by providing
the explanation requested. This was a common strategy employed by the
children who received English texts with English questions.
It must be remembered that school children rarely have an opportunity
to read English texts apart from what they copy down from the blackboard
into their exercise books. There are few English textbooks available for class
use in any subject at Vengujini Primary School or at other primary schools
in Msambweni. While children in the madrassa constantly read the Quran
in Arabic, at school they mainly listen to English. That comprehension
improves with Kiswahili questions suggests that the high wastage in primary
schools and the high failure rate on the school leaving examination which
is administered in English may not accurately assess knowledge that is
acquired at school. But it also points to the need to rethink the use of English
for instruction in the upper standards, where importance is placed on
science, agriculture, mathematics and other academic subjects that, pre-
sumably, prepare children for adulthood.
International studies of educational achievement show the average student
from a developing country scoring at a level that falls at the bottom 5 to
10% of students from a high income country (Heyneman et al, 1983,16).
Financial constraints exacerbated by educational expansion have deleterious
implications for mastery of the skills and knowledge which have been
presumed to cause changes in individuals and to result in significant social
benefits. Yet instructional conditions may be less important in accounting
for the performance of Third World students than factors related to the
organization of available resources effecting what happens to children in
rural schools.
Instruction in the madrassa occurs under circumstances that are even less
favourable to learning. According to current standards of good educational
practice, most Mwalim are unqualified and unsupervised. Class sizes are too
large, facilities are poor, teaching methods are anachronistic, curriculum is
too rigid and assessment of student performance is not norm referenced. If
Koranic education were placed under state supervision, these deficiencies
would be the subject of qualitative intervention. However, it is unlikely that
the quality of Koranic education would improve in consequence.
The strength of Koranic education is its informality, simplicity and, most
of all, in its purposiveness: the preparation of children to become members
of the Muslim community. What this implies by way of attitudinal, cognitive
Literacy and Cognition 103
104
The Uses of Literacy in Daily Life 105
public education, literacy and the introduction of new technologies of
production formed a complex ecology.
Today levels of educational attainment in many Third World countries are
approaching the historical position of western Europe in the 1950s attesting
to the enormous expansion of primary and secondary education, especially
in Asia and Latin America (Patel, 1985). Yet with the exception of some of
the so-called newly industrialized countries, for example Singapore, Taiwan,
Korea and Hong Kong, this has not been accompanied by a proportional
increase in living standards. The historical connection between literacy and
the satisfaction of basic material needs that is assumed in the rhetoric of
educational expansion in developing countries in Africa is increasingly less
convincing in the light of significant school-leaver unemployment, declining
per capita agricultural production, stagnant industrial growth and endemic
poverty.
Contemporary evidence is, however, no more informative than the
inferences that have been made from the historical experience of developed
countries in the absence of better knowledge of the uses individuals make
of literacy acquired in school and from other sources. In most educational
research, literacy has been considered to be quite simply the ability to recall
factual information from written text that a school child should be capable
of understanding. This may have little to do with the performance of tasks
that require literacy and are meaningful to most people living in peasant
societies. In such societies, the uses of literacy are confined to four domains
related to the comprehension of: (1) inspirational texts; (2) postal commu-
nications; (3) transactions involving purchasing, ordering, credit and record
keeping of various kinds; and (4) obtaining instructional information on the
use of manufactured products and equipment.
Literacy is integral to devotional activity in Christianity as well as in
Islam, but is probably more important as a form of religious expression for
Muslims. Reading and recitation of the Quran is a recurrent activity, being
part of the daily prayers and the substance of the Friday darassas. Ordinary
speech is replete with quotations from the Quran and the Hadith which are
used to strengthen claims, elaborate ideas and resolve disputes. Bible reading
is also important to African Christians, particularly to members of the
Protestant denominations that have a wide following in Eastern Africa. The
differences between Christianity and Islam in this respect have to do with
the authority of religious text and the role of religion in daily life more
generally. The Arabic Quran is universally acknowledged by Muslims to be
the product of divine revelation and the source of religious knowledge. It
is not, like the Bible, the subject of sectarian disputes as to its authenticity
and, thus, is not the focus of controversies arising from literal and allegorical
interpretations. Moreover, with the exception of some forms of funda-
mentalist Christianity, Islam is the only African religion which requires
literacy for religious practice.
BBEH
106 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
Correspondence is another domain of literate activity in rural Africa.
Postal systems in Kenya and many other African countries are well
developed and efficient, even in comparison to systems in some western
countries. High levels of internal migration, the expansion of the market
economy and the popularity of postal banking schemes have increased the
importance of postal communication despite the recent growth of tele-
communications networks. Most of the rural population in Kenya makes use
of postal communication at least occasionally. However, literacy is not
necessary for this purpose. Illiterates may rely upon literates to use the postal
system. It is quite common for illiterate or barely literate adults, for example,
to rely upon a school leaver who is a family member to read or write letters
or to negotiate their financial affairs.
Literacy is involved in many work activities apart from those associated
with formal employment and urban life. Producers of cash crops obtain
seeds, fertilizers, credit and other inputs from co-operative societies that may
purchase, process and market their crops as well. Transactions with these
societies frequently involve use of printed texts and may require, in addition,
the ability to produce text. Few subsistence producers do not have access
to the network of institutions and services which has been developed in rural
areas to increase production by making information about modern agricul-
tural technologies more widely available. Agricultural extension programs in
Kenya, for instance, provide assistance to subsistence producers and culti-
vators of cash crops in all rural districts.
At the village level, information about new techniques of production is
disseminated by example and exhortation. The "contact farmer" is the key
figure in the agricultural extension system. He is the principal recipient of
agricultural advice and modern inputs. His plot serves to demonstrate what
the introduction of new varieties, better techniques of planting and weeding,
etc., can produce. If the contact farmer is a school leaver, as is often the case
in the most educationally advanced areas of the country, he is likely to
receive more technical advice about which crops to plant, how to control
diseases in plants and animals and to improve soil fertility. He will be
shown government circulars and relevant commercial literature on these
subjects. Literacy and school-acquired knowledge of modern agriculture
may enhance the utilization of agricultural extension services despite the fact
that information is communicated mainly through oral instruction. Un-
fortunately, contact farmers and extension agents are usually men who have
been to school, and most African cultivators are women who have limited
or no schooling, which may in large part explain why extension services in
most African countries have had so little impact on changing agricultural
practices (Woods, 1984).
A small but increasingly significant proportion of the rural population is
engaged in various forms of non-formal, non-agricultural employment. The
non-formal sector in rural areas comprises a wide range of activities, most
The Uses of Literacy in Daily Life 107
of them involving trading, petty production and providing services anal-
ogous to those which have become important in the informal sector in urban
areas, such as retailing food and clothing, producing and distributing
alcoholic products, and transporting goods by handcarts and similar means.
In some rural districts in Kenya as much as a third of the adult population
may be engaged in these activities as self-employed entrepreneurs, employees
or apprentices (Shiundu, 1986). The size and growth of the rural informal
sector is closely connected with the prosperity of cash-crop production. A
recent study of self-employed school leavers in rural South Nyanza indicates
that literacy, numeracy and other school-based knowledge and skills are
used in informal sector occupations, especially in many retail trades in which
goods are obtained through correspondence, inventories must be main-
tained, receipts provided and customers served in vernacular languages
(Shiundu, 1986).
Fourth, literacy is used in comprehending many kinds of instructional
materials that are distributed with commercial products. A wide variety of
packaged products are available in rural areas, ranging from soaps and
toiletries to agricultural chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Most can be used
without reading instructional materials. However, certain products require
the consumer to follow the instructions printed on a box or packet or at least
to be familiar with how similar products should be used. Agricultural
chemicals and pharmaceuticals are examples of products whose safe and
effective use varies with the consumer's ability to comprehend instructions
and follow them. This, in turn, assumes more than the ability to read text
and recall information when necessary. It implies, as well, the ability to make
appropriate inferences from instructional text and from relevant prior
knowledge of agricultural chemistry and human biology.
In Western countries where literacy is virtually universal, a great deal of
knowledge relating to the use of these products is transmitted through
commercial advertising. For instance, advertisements for pain relievers stress
the speed with which different products are absorbed into the blood steam
through the stomach. Advertising is important in communicating informa-
tion about how pharmaceutical chemicals work to control fever symptoms,
headaches, etc. It provides a rudimentary explanation of biochemical
processes necessary for consumer acceptance of pills as a treatment modal-
ity. Science and health instruction in schools rarely touches on such topics
as these, which are believed to be in the realm of common knowledge. In
many developing countries with high rates of adult illiteracy this knowledge
cannot be presumed. Much importance is placed upon schooling for the
transmission of scientific information needed to improve health and to adopt
more efficient methods of production. School-acquired literacy is, con-
sequently, more involved in the use of products generated by modern
technology in developing countries which lack a large commercial culture
created by printed and other media.
108 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
English and Kiswahili are the principal commercial languages of Kenya,
English being the language of office work and printed communication and
Kiswahili used for market transactions as well as for product advertising.
Since independence, the Kenyan government has been reluctant to enact
language legislation that would affect the modern sector, although it has
declared Kiswahili to be the country's "official language" on several
occasions. The status of other indigenous languages is rather ambiguous.
The preponderance of English and Kiswahili in Kenya's commercial culture
perpetuates this situation.
It has been suggested that the effects of schooling occur through the
formation of competencies such as literacy and numeracy, and the
transmission of new information (Bowman, 1976). Efforts to show how
social and economic effects result have usually entailed correlation of, say
agricultural knowledge and literacy, with improvements in production that
have some intuitive relationship to school acquired knowledge and literacy;
use of new varieties, for example (Jamison and Lau, 1982). In this chapter,
a different approach is taken to assess the use of school knowledge and skills
in daily life. Attention is focused on activities that require processing of
information pertinent to the performance of a familiar task associated
with literacy as well as with the application of school knowledge. The
"effects" of schooling are studied with respect to the way in which text
related to a task is understood using prior knowledge. The language of
the text is assumed to be an important mediating variable, affecting
what school knowledge is accessed in processing information that involves
making inferences from prior knowledge. While literacy is developed in a
vernacular and a foreign language, much of the content of primary schooling
that is supposedly relevant to daily lifeespecially science and agriculture
is taught in English in the final five standards of the primary level. The use
of many products of modern technology which improve life and contribute
to societal prosperity, effects that schooling is intended to foster, pre-
supposes both literacy and prior knowledge of science, which may not be
obtained from common knowledge and which school leavers are likely to
possess in a language of instruction that many poorly comprehend. This
was the subject of experiments carried out in Mswambweni and in Kisii
where the studies of the cognitive outcomes of primary schooling were
begun.
1. Pills are absorbed into the blood stream through the stomach, or
intestines;
2. Once in the bloodstream, the drugs stimulate immunological reactions,
114 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
thereby suppressing infections which produce the symptoms associated
with a disease;
3. Symptoms may disappear before the disease is cured;
4. The dosage required is related to the stage of the disease and to the size,
weight and age of an individual; and that
5. Correct use of any drug will produce a wide range of physiological
responses, some harmful, especially if drugs are used in combination.
Similar questions were asked about these instructions (e.g. Where in the
instructions does it tell you what dosage to give to children 3-9 years of
age to prevent malaria? or How can malaria be prevented?). Responses
to questions were scored according to the correctness of the information
recalled or inferred; results for the comparison of responses to the questions
about the two products are presented below.
T A B L E 11
Comprehension of Instructions on the Use of Paludrine and Nivaquine
- M SD F
1. Text:
1.1 Paludrine 5.6 1.4 0.0114 N S
1.2 Nivaquine 10 5.7 1.0
2. Language of Administration:
2.1 English/Kiswahili 10 5.6 1.3 0.0013 N S
2.2 Kiswahili/Kiswahili 10 5.6 1.1
Note: 10 equals perfect score.
But when asked how many pills he should take to prevent malaria, he
indicated that two should be taken everyday. One tablet is also correct.
Two is a better answer given the prevalence of malaria in Msambweni (see
line 2).
Two questions concerned the characteristics of injections and pills, and the
prevention of malaria. These were designed to elicit prior knowledge of
human biology and chemistry as well as of certain principles relating to the
use of pharmaceutical products. Almost all of the subjects (nineteen of
the twenty) felt that pills were as effective as injections in curing malaria.
Typically, subjects said that since both "cured" malaria, they worked in
a similar way ("They both go in your body"). Some answers showed
knowledge of the body's circulatory system. For instance:
The idea that chloroquine whether in the form of an injection or pills "mixes
together in the blood in the body" was expressed or implied as an antecedent
of prevention and cure of malaria. What is important about this is the
articulation of knowledge of the properties of medicines with an explanation
of how they work.
Responses to the question pertaining to the prevention of malaria usually
produced simple inferences from the texts administered to subjects. How can
malaria be prevented? Everyone answered "by taking pills", though no
subject actually took malaria pills for prophylactic purposes, nor are
residents advised to do so by health authorities in Msambweni. Medicine is
taken when a person is sick. Understanding of the immunological properties
of chloroquine derivatives, however, is significant, as it suggests an under-
lying understanding of the pathology of malaria, specifically, of the fact that
malaria is a disease in the bloodstream and that if chloroquine is present
when malaria enters the body, illness is less likely. One subject, in his early
twenties, expressed this quite succinctly. "(By taking the medicine) you will
decrease the chances of getting the disease." A few expanded upon the
notion of prevention, citing public health measures that were effective
The Uses of Literacy in Daily Life 119
against malaria, including this Form II leaver who recapitulated the advice
on malaria prevention given in Home Science lessons:
Two of the subjects did not identify mosquitos as the vector responsible for
the transmission of malaria when probed about malaria prevention. Both
indicated that "drinking dirty water or eating bad food" were causes of
malaria. Boiling water and building latrines were proposed as preventative
measures. While these measures may have little to do with the epidemiology
of malaria, they are logically linked to the presumed pathology of the disease
and also suggest that prior knowledge obtained from formal instruction
the importance of boiling water and building latrines is stressed in school
as well as in adult education programsis involved in comprehending
instructions.
T A B L E 12
Comprehension of Instructions on Use of Agricultural
Insecticides and Fungicides
N = M F Significance
1. Text:
1.1 Murphy Dawa ya Mboga 15 2.8 2.36 NS
1.2 Dithane M-45 15 3.8
2. Language of administration:
2.1 English/English 10 3.7 0.549 NS
2.2 Kiswahili/Kiswahili 10 3.3
2.3 Kisii/Kisii 10 2.5
Note: 10 equals perfect score.
Only one of the women interviewed doubted the danger of the products,
reasoning that if they could be used on vegetables they were safe for humans.
Nevertheless, only three subjects mentioned two or more procedures for safe
handling and storage of the products. The most common precaution
mentioned was washing hands before consuming food. But often an
individual who understood the importance of washing hands after using a
chemical did not in the case of Dawa ya Mboga conclude that it should be
kept in a safe place away from food and children, or recall instructions given
to this effect for Dithane M-45. In brief, in comprehending the instructions
for the two products, subjects did not appear to utilize rules for applying,
handling and storing chemicals, nor did their answers seem to elicit any
school-based knowledge of agricultural biology and chemistry. This is most
evident in the questions relating to the use of Dithane M-45. Although it is
widely used in Kisii and elsewhere in Kenya on vegetables and other crops,
Dithane M-45 requires greater sophistication on the part of users, as several
128 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
applications may be necessary at regular intervals. Unlike Dawa ya Mboga
it is intended to prevent crop disease. Effective use is based upon some
knowledge of plant growth cycles as well as anticipation of fungal diseases
from information about local weather and soil conditions. In the absence of
such knowledge, many of the women cultivators interviewed extrapolated
from their experience with agricultural chemicals that work very differently.
For instance, most of them when asked when the product should be applied
answered "when the leaves start dying."
While well-schooled cultivators may be able to read instructions in English
and Kiswahili for the use of agricultural chemicals, this does not necessarily
imply an ability to utilize such modern agricultural technologies to increase
production. Schools have an important role to play in imparting the
necessary knowledge of biology and agricultural chemistry, and rules for the
safe use of agricultural chemicals. However, there is little evidence of the
effects of school instruction in agriculture and science in the data that have
been presented. Agriculture was not a compulsory subject for the school
leaving examination until 1984/85 and though the amount of agricultural
instruction the women actually received could not be determined, it is likely
that few of them (or their teachers) took the subject seriously, especially in
the final years of the primary cycle. Moreover, the instruction in science and
agriculture that is given in school may not be very useful, even if it is relevant
to applying agricultural chemicals. Computational skills, for example, are
clearly relevant to determining applications rates. Yet numerate subjects did
not make use of simple arithmetic operations learned in the lower stage of
primary education either because they did not feel that the problem given
could be solved with the information provided and the skills they already
possessed, or they did not believe that a computation was required. To take
another example, while almost all subjects had learned in school or from
other sources that agricultural chemicals may be dangerous to personal
health, this understanding was seldom connected to a set of precautionary
behaviours mentioned in the instructions or derived from previous knowl-
edge and experience. What is absent in the responses of most of the subjects
is an understanding of principles relevant to the use of agricultural chemicals
which, in turn, is predicated upon an explanatory knowledge of biological
and chemical processes. Schooling does not seem to foster the organization
of knowledge into explanatory schemata for making inferences that are
genuinely relevant to performing tasks requiring scientific and technical
knowledge in daily life.
It is possible that oral administration of the instructions for the two
products would have facilitated their comprehension. The reading aloud
task was difficult for most subjects. Not only were the chemical names
unfamiliar and difficult to pronounce, but terms such as "root crops" were
unfamiliar to them also. Many subjects asked to translate the line in the
instructions for Dawa ya Mboga where root crops are referred to made a
The Uses of Literacy in Daily Life 129
literal translation, roots of crops, rather than using the Kisii equivalent,
ebimeri hi emeri. This misunderstanding has serious implications.
However, the source of the difficulties most of the subjects experienced
may have little to do with reading or with unfamiliar vocabulary in the
English, Kiswahili and Kisii texts, or for that matter with the lack of basic
skills and knowledge. To reiterate, relevant knowledge and skills are not put
to use in comprehending the instructions for these products, perhaps because
they are not acquired in a way that makes them useable. Knowing that
agricultural chemicals are dangerous and being able to read precautions
given for particular products will not ensure that they are applied safely and
effectively unless cultivators also understand why they are dangerous and
why they must be used at certain times under favourable conditions. School
instruction in science, agriculture and other practical subjects is oriented to
vocabulary building rather than to developing an understanding of natural
and physical processes that would be useful in daily life. This is partly
attributable to the reliance on national examinations, partly to limited
learning resources, and partly to poor teacher training and poor supervision
of instruction. It is the combination of these factors that lessens the impact
of schooling on everyday activities in which school knowledge and skills can
be used.
School-acquired knowledge and skills have been associated with profound
changes in individual behaviour, and with social and material improvement
generally. This association assumes some connection between what is
learned in school and the development of cognitive capacities embedded in
"modern" productive technologies. The two studies carried out in Msamb-
weni and Kisii suggest that while schooling may develop basic competencies
that are essential to the use of products of modern technology that improve
health and increase production, this is not sufficient for desired changes to
occur unless the schooling individuals receive provides them with an
understanding of scientific and technological principles.
CHAPTER 7
Conclusion
Increasing attention has been drawn to the educational "miracle" that has
taken place in developing countries since the end of the Second World War
(Patel, 1985). School participation rates have grown enormously and this
combined with high rates of population increase in developing countries
resulted in a more than sixfold increase in enrolment between 1950 and 1981
(Patel, 1985, 1214). The greatest absolute increase has of course occurred at
the primary level where enrolment increased from an estimated 80-90
million in 1950 to almost half a billion (456 million) in 1981. More
significantly, in terms of per capita participation rates the developing
countries as a whole now rank only slightly behind the developed countries
in primary level enrolment, and have already achieved the level of enrolment
in secondary and post-secondary institutions in developed countries in the
1950s (Patel, 1985, 1317). "By any standards," Patel concluded in a recent
article on educational expansion in the Third World, this is "a miracle, a
marvel, an extraordinary event" (Patel, 1985,1317).
School expansion in Kenya, particularly since independence in 1963, has
certainly been extraordinary. Primary school enrolment quadrupled between
1963 and 1983, and today almost all (96%) children of primary school age
attend primary schools (Personal communication, Ministry of Education,
1985). This is an impressive quantitative achievement and it was repeatedly
stressed by the President and other leading political figures during the 1983
celebration of the second decade of independence.
A year later (1984), the educational system was reformed for the first time
since 1963. The reform involved expanding access to secondary and higher
education, and revising the length and content of primary schooling. The
practical effect of the reform will be to increase greatly primary and
secondary enrolments at an enormous cost that is only now being calculated.
Education accounted for about 26% of the national budget in the early
1980s (Ministry of Education, 1984). This proportion will greatly increase
in the next few years due to the costs of adding an additional year to the
primary cycle (more than 13,000 Standard VIII classes with a projected
437,000 pupils must be constructed and maintained), and with the increase
in enrolment in Form I from about 190,000 in 1985 to 222,000 in 1987
(Personal communication, Ministry of Education, 1984).
130
Conclusion 131
Substantively, the reform represents a major departure from previous
policies and practices, especially at the primary level. In the first two decades
of independence the structure of the educational system reflected a concern
for maintaining the and A level sequence that would ensure Kenyans
access to universities in the United Kingdom and in North America. At the
primary level, this meant that emphasis was placed on academic subjects and
on the use of English to prepare students for the Certificate of Primary
Education, the "gateway" to Form I to use the terminology adopted by the
authors of examination guides. Today primary education is being given a
practical orientation in recognition of the fact that it will continue to be the
terminal stage of education for most Kenyan children.
In Kenya, as in many other developing countries, there is a political and
an economic rationale for primary school expansion. Politically, agitation
for greater provision of primary schooling has its origins in the nationalist
movement in the colonial period, in the racial organization of schooling,
in the control of African education by missionary societies and in the
restrictions placed on the education of Africans for government employ-
ment. Colonial land tenure and education policies were the principal objects
of African political resentment. Pressures for educational expansion were
encouraged by nationalist politicians, particularly by the country's first
president Jomo Kenyatta and the flamboyant Tom Mboya, who soon
found themselves in the position of providing the educational fruits of
Uhuru.
The political necessity for educational expansion coincided with the
evolution of a powerful rationale for increasing public expenditures on
education drawn to a very large extent from human capital theory which had
been developed by economists in the 1950s to explain the high economic
growth rates of western countries in this century. Schooling came to be
viewed as a key instrument in the social technology of economic change. For
the developing countries the educational lessons of western countries seemed
obvious. Create a large infrastructure for upgrading the skill level of the
population, eradicate adult illiteracy as an interim measure, and significant
increases in the efficiency of all productive resources will occur. Subsequent
refinements to human capital theory in the 1960s proposed that developing
countries could optimize their educational investments by investing more
heavily in primary education where the returns to society in improving the
quality of human resources were highest. This advice was reinforced by
primary education being made a priority for African countries by inter-
national lending institutions, notably the World Bank.
Studies of the social and economic outcomes of primary schooling in
developing countries have generally supported the policies of lenders and
donors and the practices of those countries which rapidly expanded their
enrolments. Primary schooling has been associated with a wide range of
social and material improvements at the individual level and with collective
132 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
benefits to society, including lower infant mortality, smaller family sizes and
the adoption of modern technologies and methods of production.
It is difficult to reconcile claims made on behalf of primary school
expansion with evidence of the poor quality of primary school instruction.
The qualitative consequences of expansion have recently received much
attention from social scientists as well as from agencies which finance
educational development. Textbook availability, teacher training and other
measurable educational inputs have been identified as especially crucial to
learning outcomes in developing countries, and as areas where efforts should
be focused to bring about qualitative improvements. A serious weakness of
such advice is that little is known about how these inputs actually affect
learning, and even less about the usage of skills and knowledge acquired in
schools in daily life.
For a variety of reasons, most educational research in African countries
has tended to employ survey methods in data collection and to use
input/output models for analysis of school effects. This is perhaps the result
of a perceived policy imperative for educational research which is encour-
aged by foreign donors and African governments alike.
Unfortunately, input/output models require a much more precise
specification of educational inputs and outputs than is possible to generate
with survey research. Data about textbook availability, for instance, pro-
vides few insights into how textbooks are used in classrooms, what is
retained from them or how knowledge may be used. Moreover, textbook
availability is simply one part of the instructional ecology of classrooms. A
numerical increase in textbooks that is not articulated in changes in other
qualitative inputs is not likely to produce a proportional change in learning
outcomes, however these may be measured. There is, to be sure, a need to
collect better data about school resources and similar inputs for educational
policy making. But even more important is the need for better qualitative
descriptions of actual school conditions.
It is indeed remarkable how little descriptive literature exists about schools
in any African country despite the abundance of quantitative information
about the qualifications of their teaching staff, the number of textbooks,
class sizes, the performance of students on national and international
examinations, and other subjects. What has happened to primary education
in a period of rapid expansion cannot be inferred entirely from quantitative
indicators. What is the importance, for example, of 50 Standard VII children
sharing one textbook for most subjects at a rural primary school, to the
development of the ability to read printed texts? This question cannot simply
be answered by correlating textbook availability with examination scores. A
more subtle descriptive account of teaching and learning processes is needed.
The combination of ethnographic and experimental approaches which has
been employed in this research provides important insights into teaching and
learning conditions and into uses of school knowledge and skills as well. It
Conclusion 133
directs attention to the cognitive changes that schooling may foster and to
their implications for daily life. This study has focused, more specifically, on
the processes of text comprehension as central to the cognitive changes
which schooling may induce and to some of the social and economic
outcomes with which schooling had been correlated. The studies reported
here were initiated with the twofold purpose of specifying the knowledge and
comprehension skills which are developed from particular conditions of
instruction and showing how these may be related to behavioural changes.
Most of the field work was carried out in Msambweni location in Kwale
District in Kenya's Coast Province. There it was possible to study the
cognitive outcomes of literacy acquired through traditional Koranic edu-
cation as well as from government schooling, and thus better to characterize
what is unique about school experiences in terms of the opportunities they
afford for the development of various kinds of comprehension skills.
Experimental work was preceded by lengthy observation of Koranic and
government schools in order to develop instruments for assessing compre-
hension skills that assessed these in relation to familiar tasks. Use of school
knowledge and text comprehension skills outside of school was also studied
ethnographically and experimentally. In Msambweni a study was under-
taken of the comprehension of printed instructions for pharmaceutical
products to determine whether school influences could be detected in an
activity that is presumably related to schooling. A similar study was done
in Kisii district on a different subject, but one that is related as well to the
usage of school knowledge and literacy in daily life. Both sought to examine
the antecedents of behaviour that can be observed in school.
research indicated that while Koranic literacy may foster the development
of capacities in recalling information from text, it does little to promote
abilities in making inferences involving more complex cognitive processes of
the kind that school-acquired literacy is thought to enhance (Scribner and
Cole, 1981). Our study of children who had completed or nearly completed
traditional Koranic schooling suggested that the cognitive outcomes of such
instruction may include skills in making inferences within and between
religious texts, even texts in Arabic which the children were not taught in
translation.
Another study considered the comprehension of religious and science texts
among school children who had attended madrassa for less than two years.
Comprehension was found to decrease when the language of the texts and
the questions administered to subjects replicated conditions of instruction at
school. Children performed particularly poorly with English texts and
questions. A small number of school children who had finished madrassa
were compared to the other students. Their comprehension scores were
higher under all language conditions, indicating that skills acquired from
Koranic education may facilitate comprehension of secular as well as
religious texts.
Three factors may account for the better performance of children that
have undergone a lengthy course of study in a Koranic school. First, and
perhaps most significant, they are constantly working with printed text.
Although the learning conditions in most madrassas are deficient in many
respects, there is no shortage of Koranic texts and these are central to
instruction. In school, students seldom have an opportunity to read, as few
textbooks are available for study. While Koranic education might be
regarded as an extension of oral tradition, this characterization may be more
appropriate for schooling.
Second, understanding of religious principles and their moral applications
in daily life is a salient feature of religious education. This is not developed
self-consciously through expository discussion, but it pervades instruction.
Understanding is seen to require obedience to the will of God rather than
interpretation; nevertheless, God's will must be discerned from a knowledge
of sacred text. School instruction, especially in the upper standards, is
oriented to acquiring knowledge for the school leaving examination. In
preparing students for the examinations, teachers make extensive use of
vocabulary-building exercises of the fill-in-the-blank type which often do not
develop an understanding of principles or their applications in science and
other subjects. However, the national examinations cannot be passed with
only a knowledge of English scientific and technical vocabulary. Such
knowledge is still essential and it is more easily taught by poorly trained
teachers who may have little understanding of natural science, have
difficulties in using English for instruction and rely upon sample papers and
examination guides in preparing lessons.
136 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
Third, the language policy of Koranic education is consistent throughout.
Children attending madrassa learn the Quran in Arabic, largely without
benefit of translation. Although performance is assessed in terms of reading
and reciting Arabic, Kiswahili is used to organize learning activities,
ensuring that children always understand what they are asked to do.
Children who stay in the madrassa after they have entered school benefit
from the experience in two ways. Koranic education affords an opportunity
to develop skills, especially in recalling text in a foreign language from
memory, which are pertinent to school instruction. Moreover, it involves an
intellectual training focused on the correct understanding of text. This is
important in school as the student's attention is more likely to be directed
to the meaning of what is taught.
Koranic education is increasingly becoming a form of universal pre-school
education, and even that future is uncertain. The Kenyan government has
made religion a compulsory subject in primary schools and is encouraging
communities throughout the country to construct pre-schools, though it has
not as yet pledged to maintain them. One has been built in Msambweni. This
will put further pressure on the Koranic schools which have been losing
enrolment of school-age children to the government primary schools. That
is unfortunate because the madrassas appear to be effective in making
children literate, providing them with a "head start" for their schooling by
offering a more rigorous intellectual training than what they will receive in
school.
Studies were carried out in Msambweni and in Kisii to assess long-term
outcomes of schooling, specifically the usage of school-acquired knowledge
and literacy skills in comprehending printed instructions for taking malaria
pills and applying agricultural chemicals. Adult literates who finished at least
six years of primary school were asked to perform a series of comprehension
tasks requiring recall of information presented in instruction and making
inferences from the materials as well as from their prior knowledge. Analysis
of the findings indicated that while subjects may possess knowledge and
skills essential to following the instructions for and correctly using these
products of modern technology, they often do not draw upon what they have
learned in school when it is necessary for them to do so. It was suggested
that how children become literate and acquire knowledge in school has an
important influence on the use they make of schooling in adult life.
The effects of schooling on many indicators of social and material
improvement in developing countries are profound but quite modest. The
large qualitative variations in schooling, especially at the primary level, may
be the source of this. Efforts to improve school quality have focused on
specific needs, the need for more textbooks, for in-service training for
teaching staff, etc., rather than on the ecology of instruction. It is the
combination of these factors which may limit the effectiveness of schooling
as an instrument of social and economic change.
Conclusion 137
Textbook Availability
The shortage of school textbooks in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa is well
documented and critical in rural areas. Schools such as those studied in
Msambweni do not have more than a few textbooks for each subject, for
classes that often exceed fifty students. The result? Students rarely have any
opportunity to read or to study from printed material with serious con-
sequences for the development of literacy skills. Textbooks in vernacular
languages (with the exception of Kiswahili) are frequently unavailable in the
first three standards, and since most of them are not commercially produced,
they cannot be easily purchased by parents. English and Kiswahili texts,
particularly the English texts prescribed for use in the upper standards, are
available to rural schools only in limited quantities and are priced beyond
the means of most Kenyans. Classroom learning is, for this reason, an
extension of pre-literate traditions. Children listen and seldom read. How-
ever, they do copy information they receive from the teacher into their
exercise books. Transcription is an important learning activity; it is the
means by which literacy is acquired.
The "traditionalism" of Koranic education, more specifically, the empha-
sis placed on rote learning of text has its parallel in the dictation of learning
material to students in government schools. In fact, rote learning may be
more prevalent in secular than in religious education because of the scarcity
of printed matter. Schooling may facilitate the acquisition of literacy, but
it does not offer much opportunity to practise literacy so that its use becomes
habitual.
Increased provision of textbooks is certainly a necessary element of any
strategy for improving the quality of primary schooling. This may, some
studies have claimed, facilitate significant knowledge gains (Heyneman,
1983). But it may well have an ever more important effect in increasing the
use and subsequent retention of literacy by school leavers. Skills in compre-
hending information presented in printed text must, after all, be developed
at school if they are to be utilized for acquiring information in daily life.
Language of Instruction
Shortly after it obtained independence in 1963, the Kenyan government
enacted changes at the primary level limiting the use of vernacular languages
to the first three years of schooling, and making this optional. Many schools
in urban areas with ethnically mixed student populations teach in English
from Standard I. Whatever benefits may be claimed for introducing English
early in the primary cycle, two circumstances greatly affect the outcomes of
this policy. First, primary school teachers often enter teaching with a poor
knowledge of English, despite the fact that most have undertaken six to eight
BBEJ
138 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
years of instruction in English and in the case of trained teachers passed
three national examinations in English including the compulsory English
paper. Transcriptions from school classes in science, agriculture and other
subjects have been discussed in various connections in previous chapters; one
observation can be made with respect to all of them. Classroom discourse
is difficult to follow. Teachers' directions and illustrations are expressed in
ambiguous language and it is frequently unclear to an English speaker what
is being expected of students. Students seldom utter more than a few words
when asked questions by their teacher because they do not know the answers
or, as is more likely to be the case, because they are hesitant to answer in
English questions that they do not fully understand. Classroom instruction
is not based on an expository dialogue between teachers and students except,
perhaps, in the first three standards when basic literacy and numeracy skills
are taught through drills and choral recitation. In the upper standards where
English is supposed to be taught as a subject, the teaching of English
scientific and technical vocabulary is often, as has been shown, the object
and not the medium of instruction.
Second, the majority of children who enter primary school will leave
school before completing the final standard and sitting for the Kenya
Certificate of Primary Education examination. Attrition rates increase
particularly after the sixth standard in many rural schools, and especially
among women students. Most students may have become literate in the
vernacular and in English by then. However, much of the school knowledge
that is important to daily life is not taught until the end of the primary cycle
and at that time in English.
Experimental data obtained from Standard VII students in Msambweni
indicates that text comprehension scores seriously decline when English texts
and English questions are used to elicit information. These are the conditions
of instruction in the upper standards. Data from the studies of adult literates
indicate that comprehension of instructional text does not improve with the
use of text in the subject's mother tongue. The findings from these two sets
of studies appear to be contradictory. Children have more difficulty in
comprehending English text in school than adults do in comprehending
printed instructions in English outside school. What they suggest, though,
is that present language policies may not only be an obstacle to learning in
school, but they may as well inhibit the use of school knowledge in daily life.
School leavers may be able to read English and to recall some school
knowledge acquired in English. Still our studies provide little evidence that
this enables them to apply what they have presumably learned to a familiar
task of practical importance, even when mother tongue text is used to
facilitate comprehension. In other words, knowledge essential to many social
and economic changes may not be acquired or if acquired not retrieved in
the mother tongue or in another language of instruction. One implication
is that school effects would probably be enhanced by the use of either
Conclusion 139
English or the vernacular language for instruction throughout the primary
cycle.
Examinations
The orientation of primary school instruction to national examinations
has been the subject of much complaint in Kenya, from, among others,
President Moi who in 1984 described the examinations as unrealistic and
biased. This resulted in new administrative appointments at the Kenya
National Examinations Council and the renaming of the school leaving
examination (Weekly Review, 1984). The examinations have been criticized
for favouring children in urban schools, for requiring recall of factual
information and for contributing to the rigidity of instruction. These
criticisms have some foundation in fact. Children in urban districts do score
higher than those in rural districts, although the proportion of students that
obtain entrance to secondary schools is sometimes higher in rural than in
urban areas. Many examination questions do seem to require recalling
factual information, but this has been recognized by the Examinations
Council and serious attempts have been made to rectify the situation
(KNEC, 1983).
Examinations strongly influence instruction at all levels of the educational
system (King, n.d.). At the primary level, students spend several years
preparing for an examination that will select the majority of them out of
further schooling. Still, there is little disagreement with the notion that
admission to secondary school should be evidence of successful completion
of primary schooling as well as of the quality of instruction students receive.
The school leaving examination is an efficient selection device, partly
because it is administered in English. This is probably much more important
in accounting for the high failure rate than the topics chosen for question
construction, the types of questions used or the "quality" of student
preparation. Students do very poorly with English text if English questions
are asked to elicit comprehension. The higher scores for the comprehension
tasks administered under the Kiswahili/Kiswahili and English/Kiswahili
language conditions indicate that the examination results for students such
as those studied in Msambweni could be greatly improved if they were
examined in Kiswahili.
The school leaving examination that is being administered in 1985 has
been changed in several ways. Kiswahili and practical subjects have been
added to the examination and some account will be taken of continuous
assessment in calculating the total score. These measures are unlikely to
make the examination less "biased" and "unrealistic". Students in rural
schools where facilities for teaching practical subjects are poorest, where
language teachers and other specialists are in short supply and where
coverage of the present syllabus is weak are not apt to find the examination
140 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
any easier because less importance is placed on academic subjects. More-
over, the examination will still be administered in English.
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144 Benefiting from Basic Education in Kenya
147
148 Index
Kenya National Examinations Council 33 Numeracy 20
Kenya National Primary Education Nutrition 72
Examination 34 Nyika 42
Kenyatta, J. 41, 47
Kikuyu 41
Kisii 2 O'Hara, D . J. 24
Kiswahili 4 Ominde, S. 50
Kiswahili texts 71
Knowledge/understanding 62
Koranic education 4, 9, 15, 133 Paludrine 114
comprehension 86 Pastoral populations 51
tradition and change 64 Pesticides 121
Koranic schools 36, 51, 55, 73 Pharmaceutical biochemistry 113
Koranic teachers 67 Pharmaceutical products, instructions 108
Kpelle 20 Plantations 40
Kwale 4, 36 Pollution 122
Postal communication 106
Practical subjects 29
Lancaster agreement 49 Preachings 61
Land alienation 40 Pre-school education 69, 136
Language and comprehension 101, 137 Primary school curricula 34
Liberia 20, 21 Primary school enrolment 2, 12, 27, 45, 51,
Literacy 130
acquisition and uses in a coastal society 1 Production and schooling 17
agricultural chemicals 120
agricultural productivity 19
cognition 70 Quran 54, 73, 105
devotional act 59
retention 22
uses in daily life 104 Racially segregated schools 41
Local Native Councils 42, 46 Rates of return, educational investment
16, 17
Recall 58, 96
Madrassas 9, 10, 55, 73, 134 Recitation 4
Malaria 4, 108 Religious instruction 4, 9, 54, 74
Market economy 7 in secular education 65
Marriage 80 Religious texts, comprehension 85, 91
Material aspirations 24 Retention of skills 21
Mboya, T. 48, 50 Reward and punishment 15
Memorization 4, 58, 73, 96
Migrant wage labourers 40
Migration 6 Schisms 60
Mijikenda 37, 43 School attendance 12
Missionaries 37, 38, 40 School effects
Modernity syndrome 14 cognition 19
Modernization, cognition 20 health 23
Modernization theory 14 instructional materials 106, 108
Mombassa Institute of Muslim Education theories 13, 14
46 School environment 16
Msambweni 5, 74, 133 School expansion 26, 130
Multi-racial school 42 School leaving examinations 79, 139
Muslims 4, 9, 39 School quality and achievement 27
Mwalim 74, 77 Science texts, comprehension 89
Secondary education, economic benefits 16
Secularization 10
National Committee on Educational Secular schooling 4, 54, 79, 133
Objectives and Policies 29 Self-employment 107
Nivaquine 115 Simmons, J. 22
Index 149