Education ministry entrenching cancer of negative ethnicity

By Nicholas Gumbo

On Monday January 29 1979, I joined Form One at Cardinal Otunga High School (Mosocho) in Kisii.

I had sat the previous year’s CPE at Opapo in southern Nyanza.

I remember this day vividly for two reasons. It was the first night ever I was going to spend with people who were not my relatives, and, anxiety consumed me.

Secondly, because of an incident that made me stand out in the school, but for all the wrong reasons.

I left Opapo carrying Sh800 as my Term One fees. To secure it, I divided the amount into two and pushed it inside my socks. It was my first time to put on leather shoes.

By the time we reached Kisii, the new shoes, with the cash stashed inside my socks, were pinching my feet. I therefore kicked them off for some relief.

At Mosocho, I quickly forced back my shoes, picked my box, and walked through the gates of the "Red City".

As I sat on the wooden bench outside the office, I noticed giggling and excitement as some boys pointed in my direction. I had been told I was the only pupil from a public day school admitted that year with three straight A’s.

Exceptional achievement

The whole school seemed to know this, as that was an exceptional achievement. That lifted my spirits a little, but soon the reality hit me hard when one of the Form Two students stepped forward, pointed at my feet and shouted: "You mono, how did a primitive animal like you manage to come to the Red City?" It was then I realised I had slipped my left foot into the right shoe, and the right foot into the left shoe.

The first four weeks were very tough. I felt completely out of place. Nostalgia was killing me. I longed for the friends I had left at home, the ones with whom we’d gone out many times hunting for squirrels and birds.

To make matters worse, most of the boys in my Kenyatta Dormitory either seemed to have come from boarding schools, or from very rich families. They were simply called "dudes". One such was the son of a prominent politician from Kisumu, who was my decker mate.

He so hated my village ways that when he saw me keeping my karai inside my box one day, he swore to make my life hell so I could be transferred elsewhere. And hell he made it be. Nights seemed endlessly long. Many times I woke up terrified to find myself hurtling down from the upper decker after he pushed me out.

Strange language

I hated life and everything seemed wrong. The Kisii language sounded strange and irritating. Words like ng’ora-ng’ora and bwango-bwango sounded like meaningless blabber to me.

But time has a way of dealing with everything. My six years at Mosocho went by very quickly. The Mosocho I had hated so much now turned out to be the best place I had ever been. Not only had I learnt the Kisii language, but also enjoyed speaking it.

Till today whenever I face difficult situations, the expression which comes readily to mind is the Kisii proverb Chiabunire Amachoki, loosely translating into "When the going gets tough...."

How did this happen? It was because Cardinal Otunga was a school in Kenya, for all the children of Kenya.

Almost every single Kenyan community, including whites and Indians, was represented in Mosocho. Thus, a regular caution from our famous headmaster, the late Innocent de Kok (or Morimbocho as the locals fondly called him) was against the ills of tribalism, always reminding us there were 30-plus different communities in the school, and we had to accommodate one another. We learnt and appreciated everyone’s culture, and it opened our eyes like no book could!

Shaped views

The experiences I took from this unique school shaped my views as a teenager, a young man, and a citizen of Kenya. By the time I left Mosocho, the primitive villager who had walked in five years earlier had matured into a Kenyan with a very broad view of his country.

Recently, the Ministry of Education announced a criteria for Form One admissions into national schools from next year, where 20 per cent will come from the host district, with 40 per cent coming from the home county.

The "rest of the country" will take the remaining 40 per cent. Counties are actually districts as they existed before the 90s.

Effectively therefore, what the ministry has done is to reserve 60 per cent of all vacancies in "national" schools to locals.

I have said it on many occasions that if Kenya hopes to achieve lasting communal hospitality among its peoples, it must decisively confront the dangers of negative ethnicity head-on.

Indeed, it ought to be obvious that any meaningful pursuit of lasting national cohesion and integration must involve Kenyan children at a very early age. How, then, does this action by the ministry help in achieving lasting cohesion in Kenya?

If there is a single factor that has held back the promise of Kenya, it is negative ethnicity and tribalism.

Already, ethno-centric individuals are planting fear ahead of next year’s elections by playing the ethnic card.

How then can we accept a Government policy that results in further entrenchment of this cancer?

Those of us who believe in the future of one, strong, united Kenya must come out to oppose this retrogressive policy.

The proposal may look harmless now, but if it is not resisted, it may in fact be the first baby steps towards turning the 47 counties into autonomous, independent countries.