By Amos Kareithi

Back in the days when schools were the preserve of sons perceived to be physically weak, it was unthinkable for a woman to dream of a life beyond the kitchen.

It was equally unimaginable for a family, however liberal it was, to send one of its girls to school. Such thoughts could trigger a revolution.

Despite the coming of the white man, it still took decades before women could be afforded any opportunity to go to school.

Although these dark ages are long gone, some aspects are still prevalent in many parts of the country, undermining the big gains made in women emancipation.

This emancipation dates back to 1938, when the early educationists conducted an experiment that did not produce instant results.

A few years earlier, a fierce struggle had ensued after protestant missionaries introduced drastic decrees that touched off a revolution, especially in Central Kenya.

It all started when Dr William Arthur, head of the Church Mission Society, banned female circumcision in 1929.

This precipitated a crisis, which gave the floundering Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) more weapons for its arsenal to challenge the establishment. The association sent Jomo Kenyatta to Britain in February 1929 to present their grievances.

In the ensuing stalemate, thousands of Africans renounced the protestant churches and joined the Gikuyu Karing’a, the predecessor of today’s African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa (AIPCA). Before things fell apart, the first African boys’ school, Alliance High School, was established in January 1926.

Interestingly, the campaign for the circumcision of girls was championed by men, as women were not supposed to be heard. However, even then, there were some progressive forces who thought that educating a woman was not such a bad idea.

The book The Gift of a School captures this struggle for girl education. Authored by Jacinta Kapiyo, Elizabeth Kamau, Lucy Muliro and Wanjiru Musita, this book details the history of Alliance Girls High School and tells how an experiment on educating girls was started in 1938.

The experiment was driven by the realisation that girls had brains although “they had not developed to a point where they could compete with boys”.

It is against this background that the first girls who qualified to go to secondary school were first admitted at Alliance High School, a boys’ school.

Pioneers

The first two girls to ever set foot in a secondary school in Kenya, Zibia Wanjiru Ngatho, who hailed from Thogoto, and Loise Njeri Koinange from Banana, were admitted in 1938.

By 1945, according to another book, The Kenyatta Cabinets, Drama, Intrigues, Triumph, these two were still the only girls in junior school.

They were admitted to Alliance by the first principal, Mr G A Grieve, who is credited with supporting the campaign for equal education opportunities for boys and girls.

However, when Carey Francis, the famous mathematician, was posted to head Alliance, he was not amused by the presence of girls in a boys’ high school.

Despite Francis’ disapproval, other girls were admitted to the premier boys’ school on an experimental basis, among them Rebecca Njau. Rebecca, who later became a teacher and prolific writer, was in a class that included Kenneth Matiba, the famous businessman and politician. She proceeded to Makerere during the Emergency era of the 1950s.

When Queen Elizabeth, who had just been crowned, was scheduled to visit Uganda, crime busters went to Makerere to screen all suspected Mau Mau adherents. In excerpts of an interview published in The Kenyatta Cabinets, Rebecca said she was not a Mau Mau yet.

 “I said I had not taken the Mau Mau oath and they asked why not. Without thinking, I replied I hadn’t found any one to give the oath to me.”

From that day, she became a marked woman at Makerere.

Another remarkable girl who attended classes at the Alliance boys’ school was Margaret Wambui, who was born in 1929, the year her father, Kenyatta, was sent to London to represent the KCA.

Leaving a mark

When Kenyatta returned from another trip to London in August 1946, she was living with her mother, Grace Wahu, in Dagoretti, and was about to sit her examinations at the Church of Scotland Mission, also known as Mambere. This school is now known as Musa Gitau Primary School.

After passing her examinations, Wambui went to Alliance High School and would later leave a mark in a male dominated life, including being Nairobi mayor.

The admission of girls on trial basis galled Francis, as he was very sceptical of Africans’ capabilities and was particularly biased against women. He said that he was not adequately equipped to provide girls with education.

In 1944, Francis saw a permanent solution to his problem after he was appointed to a committee formed to lobby the government to formulate a policy for girls’ education. Predictably, the committee comprising of Francis, L B Greaves, W Blaikie and L Warobi proposed the establishment of a separate school for girls.

Although the committee was opposed to co-education facilities, the members proposed that Alliance High and the proposed school for girls continue cooperating.

Later, the missionaries embraced the idea of the establishment of a girls’ school and volunteered to provide land on the understanding that the colonial government would provide the finances for constructing and maintaining it.

The first steps towards establishing Alliance Girls’ High School were taken by the then head of Church Scotland Mission in Kenya, Rev R G M Calderwood. When he learnt that an army camp near Nairobi was being broken up, he bought a large wooden hut, had it dismantled and used the materials to construct a dormitory, dining hall, classroom, toilets and stores at the intermediate school in the mission station at Thogoto.

The humble education facility was almost nameless; it was referred to as Girls Senior Secondary School.

Despite its rudimentary state, the first headmistress of the school, Jean Ewan, described its establishment in February 1948, as “a great step forward in the education of the girl child in Kenya”.

Once its constitution was drafted and approved in March 1949, Alliance Girls’ High School admitted its first ten students. Those who had studied at the neighbouring Alliance High were not included in its roll.

New site

Consequently, the first student at the school is recorded as Abigael Kagecha followed by Dorcas Aleyo, both from Friends African Mission, Kaimosi. Admission number three belonged to Edith Ukima of Church of Scotland Mission (CSM), Chogoria, while student number four was Hannah Jerono of African Inland Mission (AIM), Kericho.

Others were Jane Wacera (African Anglican Church, Kahuhia), Jedidah Kivali (Friends Mission, Kaimosi), Miriam Nyathogora and Perpetua Wamuyu (both from CSM, Tumutumu) and Lorna Omolo ( AIM, Ngiya).

On being admitted at the school, these girls who represented the face of Kenya were presented with two khaki skirts and two white blouses. Each girl was also given green wool and knitting needles to make her own sweaters, which had to be knitted within the first week as Kikuyu was extremely cold.

Later in the year, plans to move the school about a mile from the mission compound commenced after the securing of a lease. The school was moved to the new site in November 1950 in an elaborate ceremony presided over by Philip Mitchell, the then governor of Kenya.

At the time, the school had only 27 students, of whom seven were teacher trainees.

Sixty-five years later, Alliance Girls’ High School has come of age and made immense contributions by educating many of Kenya’s female leaders who have in turn served humanity in all parts of the world.

The writer can be reached at amoskareithi@yahoo.co.uk