Literature, Education & Images of Self

The current debate about the teaching of literature in our schools has shown that Kenyans are very concerned about the literary diet now ladled to our children. This is as it should be. Education is truly a mirror unto a people’s social being and it is also the means by which that being is reproduced and passed onto the next generation. For · that reason education has been the main ideological battlefield between the economic, political, and cultural forces of oppression and the forces of national liberation and unity. The education system was the first fortress to be stormed by the spiritual army of colonialism, clearing and guarding the way for a permanent siege by the entire occupation forces of British imperialism.

The debate has raised four main issues with questions which go well beyond the problem of literature alone. The first is the question of relevance and adequacy of the current education system. What is the philosophy underlying it? What are the premises and guidelines? What and whose social vision is it serving? What, then, is the sort of literature we should be teaching in our schools? The second is that of the decision-making personnel. Who should take decisions crucial to our literary and cultural programmes? Who should determine what is taught and even how it is taught? Foreigners or nationals? The third question relates to the teaching personnel. Should we be recruiting and retaining foreigners to teach literature, language, history, and culture in our schools? Should foreigners be the main interpreters of our being to ourselves? The fourth issue is the question of approaches to literature. What is the guiding world outlook of teachers of literature? What is the class standpoint of the interpreters of literature? In a structure of a few oppressing the many where do these interpreters stand?

The current debate tends to centre on the third issue, whether or not, we should be employing foreigners. While this is an important subject, it has tended to overshadow the other three problems which are more fundamental. It has also tended to obscure the real thrust of the recommendations of the working committee on the teaching of literature in our schools.