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Indigenous knowledge practices for sustainable lifelong education in pastoralist communities of Kenya

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Abstract

Despite setting high hopes on education, very few pastoral nomad children in Kenya transition from primary education to secondary education. This article argues that the national Kenyan compulsory formal curriculum fails to accommodate the needs of pastoralist communities. Literacy rates are particularly low among the Turkana people, pastoralist nomads who live in the Northwest of Kenya. Low literacy has resulted in an acute shortage of local teachers, a state of affairs which exacerbates the situation. Nomadic communities like the Turkana people rarely attract national discussions on education curriculum even as their children continue to perform poorly on national examinations. The author of this article demonstrates the importance of integrating Indigenous knowledge and mother-tongue instruction in the curriculum for pastoralist schools. Based on his own research in Turkana County, he identifies two main problems besides the shortage of teachers, namely the inappropriateness of the materials used for instruction, which do not reflect the pastoralist children’s local Indigenous culture and everyday environment; and the failure to use Turkana mother tongue in early childhood education, which would support children’s literacy development, and thus serve to improve literacy rates in the community as a whole. The author presents a family literacy project he was involved in which has made a promising start in addressing these two issues. Stories were collected from parents and elders and made into storybooks, thereby creating tailor-made, meaningful instruction materials. The author expresses his hope that this article will stimulate critical discussions in Kenya which will respect the participation of pastoralist nomadic communities in making decisions about education policy.

Résumé

Pratiques liées au savoir autochtone dans une éducation durable tout au long de la vie pour les communautés nomades du Kenya – Malgré de grands espoirs placés dans l’éducation, très peu d’enfants nomades pastoraux au Kenya passent de l’enseignement primaire à l’enseignement secondaire. Cet article soutient que le programme d’études national officiel obligatoire du Kenya ne répond pas aux besoins des communautés pastorales. Les taux d’alphabétisme sont particulièrement bas chez les Turkana, éleveurs nomades qui vivent dans le nord-ouest du Kenya. Ce faible niveau d’alphabétisme a entraîné une grave pénurie d’enseignants locaux, ce qui aggrave la situation. Les communautés nomades comme le peuple Turkana suscitent rarement des discussions nationales sur les programmes d’enseignement, même si leurs enfants continuent d’afficher de faibles résultats aux examens nationaux. L’auteur de cet article démontre l’importance d’intégrer le savoir autochtone et l’enseignement en langue maternelle dans les programmes scolaires des écoles pastorales. Sur la base de ses propres recherches dans le comté de Turkana, il identifie deux problèmes principaux, outre la pénurie d’enseignants, à savoir l’inadéquation du matériel utilisé pour l’enseignement, qui ne reflète pas la culture indigène locale et l’environnement quotidien des enfants des communautés pastorales, et le fait que la langue maternelle turkana ne soit pas utilisée dans l’enseignement préscolaire, alors qu’il favoriserait le développement du savoir des enfants et permettrait d’améliorer les taux d’alphabétisme dans la communauté tout entière. L’auteur présente un projet d’alphabétisation familiale auquel il a participé et qui a pris un départ prometteur pour aborder ces deux questions. Des histoires ont été collectées auprès des parents et des aînés et transformées en recueils d’histoires, ce qui a permis de créer du matériel d’enseignement sur mesure et pertinent. L’auteur espère que cet article stimulera des discussions critiques au Kenya qui respecteront le fait que les communautés nomades pastorales doivent prendre part à la prise de décisions en matière de politique éducative.

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Notes

  1. Kenya became independent on 12 December 1963, and was declared a republic on 12 December 1964.

  2. According to the current Constitution (RoK 2010), Kenya is administratively divided into 47 counties. Turkana is the 23rd County.

  3. The National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (NACONEK) is a semi-autonomous government agency established in 2015. “The Council's mandate is to steer and coordinate efforts towards quality education for all in nomadic communities” (MoEST 2015, Foreword).

  4. Before the current constitution (RoK 2010) came into force, Kenya was administratively divided into 8 provinces, which were subdivided into 69 districts.

  5. Kraal is the Afrikaans/Dutch word for corral, a fenced-in enclosure for cattle, sheep etc.

  6. The “funds of knowledge” concept provides a framework for teachers’ recognition of children’s everyday household resources of the kind that families use for their livelihood. Examples are utensils, artefacts, farm materials, food stuffs and all forms of cultural resources surrounding pastoralist households. Teachers use these household funds of knowledge to open up lesson planning to include a wider learning environment beyond what is stipulated in the prescribed standard curriculum.

  7. The term “code-switching” refers to switching from one language to another, sometimes in the middle of a conversation. In this context, a teacher might choose to code-switch from English to the local language if s/he realises the students do not understand the lesson in English. In the same way, children also code-switch, usually to their native language, when they experience difficulty in speaking English or Kiswahili words.

  8. “Ethnographic inquiry”, in this context, refers to the use of ethnographic research to uncover social injustices of formal education in marginalised communities that have traditionally maintained their cultural lifestyles. The inquiry argues that there is potential in all cultures.

  9. “Decolonising and defamiliarising research” refers to a departure from traditional research methodologies based on Western ideology, drawing instead on a theoretical framework that is grounded on Indigenous ways of thinking and traditional beliefs about the nature of knowledge.

  10. During the period of the study, I was tasked to collect at least 25 stories, seven of which were selected for publication. As part of the ongoing activities of the project, the stories will be reviewed by stakeholders in Turkana County prior to being uploaded to the African Storybook website. To see a few examples from other African regions, visit the African Storybook website at https://africanstorybook.org/ [accessed 20 December 2018]. The project as a whole is an initiative of Saide, a registered non-profit organisation governed by a Trust and based in Johannesburg. The first four years of the project (2013 to 2016) were funded by a UK-based funder, Comic Relief.

  11. An “exploratory” research design is used to investigate a phenomenon on which little research has been done yet. A “longitudinal” research design aims to identify changes over time.

  12. “Participatory action research” (PAR) refers to involving community members both in identifying local problems and in finding solutions for these.

  13. Although there are some printed books in Ngaturkana (the Turkana language), such as dictionaries and a Turkana translation of the Bible produced by missionaries based on the Latin alphabet, the Turkana people have yet to reach a consensus on their language alphabet.

  14. The Millennium Development Agenda (2000–2015) with its 8 goals, the second of which was to “achieve universal primary education”, is succeeded by the Sustainable Development Agenda (2015–2030). The fourth of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) takes the previous agenda’s target further in aiming to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” (UN DESA 2015).

  15. These are the names of former provinces. As mentioned earlier, Kenya administratively reorganised its 8 provinces into 47 counties in 2010 (RoK 2010).

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Acknowledgements

Funding for the research work presented in this article was provided by the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), which I am very happy to acknowledge with appreciation. Research in Turkana mother tongue teaching is continuing with support from SAIDE, in partnership with the African Storybook project.

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Ng’asike, J.T. Indigenous knowledge practices for sustainable lifelong education in pastoralist communities of Kenya. Int Rev Educ 65, 19–46 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-019-09767-4

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