Thread by @wmnjoya

I was very surprised to learn from @MikeMwendaK's book that A levels were a form of limiting education, both in the UK and East Africa.

In the UK, A levels were introduced after WWII to further limit the number of people in high schools seeking HE.
g.co/kgs/ymLSsy

At independence, the so called nationalist parties like KANU supported colonial ideas of education because they also saw shooling as an elitistist project to limit the number of students attending university. So KANU accepted the introduction of the higher school certificate.

A level added another examination barrier to entrance to university, despite the fact that few Africans had access to education. But as Kithinji explains, the problem at independence was that African elites shared the same ideas as their colonial foreparents.

I was also surprised to read that our unis were started by the British AFTER the independence of Tanzania and Uganda. IOW, the British were still dictating our education so that "a small class of educated Africans would be intellectually and ideologically inclined to the West."

This history strengthens my suspicion at the height of the CBC debate, that CBC was introduced by the old school Kenyan elitists who wanted to return education from the American-oriented liberal arts to the British elitist A level system. wandianjoya.com/blog/2-6-3-3-c…

The British Council funded CBC. Many of the arguments for CBC, especially about technical subjects, were racist arguments made by settlers as early as the 1920s. The argument about "progress" and technology were strongly Victorian.

And CBC restored high school to 6 years, but people didn't notice because because their minds were so stuck on 8.4.4, they didn't hear me tell KICD that everything they were saying is the system which us older people went through.

Nothing about CBC is new. Nothing.