Mission schools nurtured the best

Major dynamics that gave Kiambu a head start over other regions, right from the start of colonialism, included missionary stations that came with training, schools and clinics.

The major missionary centres were at Thogoto, Mang’u and Kambui in today’s Githunguri constituency. Established by different missionary societies, they were both Protestant and Catholic.

Their pioneers, who had to wage an incessant struggle for dominance came from different countries — and the fact that evangelisation was not their only objective meant the outposts became centres for teacher and medical training.

That was the case with the Thogoto and Kambui missions, which also offered primary education to the local children.

There was a time, however, when the teachings of the missionaries were challenged, after the 1929 female circumcision crisis, and that resulted in the setting up of independent schools, with the top teacher training college being the one at Githunguri.

Founded by Mbiyu Koinange, it was later headed by Jomo Kenyatta himself, soon after his final return from England.

The early missionaries also set up the Hunter Memorial Hospital at Thogoto, which thrives today as the PCEA Kikuyu Hospital, with popular eye and dental units.

As for primary education, the missionaries at Thogoto, for instance, had as a priority set up Mambere School which sowed the seeds of literacy in the region and produced most of the raw materials for nearby teacher and medical training.

The top primary teacher training centres in Kiambu have for decades been Thogoto and Kilimambogo colleges.

Among the most famous alumni of Mambere School were the intelligentsia, including the young Jomo Kenyatta, who are remembered as the first to master the three Rs.

They would in later years scale the heights in academia and the professions, locally and abroad. In time they became the critical mass that provided leadership in different spheres of Kenyan life.

In the wake of the success of primary schools like Mambere came leading secondary schools which soon attracted students from across Kenya.

Over the years such schools as Alliance and Mang’u High became the major conduits to universities like Makerere in Kampala.

Today these schools are recognised, as they were in the past, as the harbingers of professional and academic excellence.

Trailblazing Alliance High School, a centre of unwavering academic excellence for more than 80 years, was the first school in Kenya to offer secondary education for Africans.

Founded in 1926 by an alliance of Protestant missions that included the Church of Scotland Mission (today’s Presbyterian Church of East Africa), the Methodist Church, the Anglican Church and  the African Inland Church (AIC), it became a milestone in the history of education in Kenya.

Well known old boys

Alumni include many generations of prominent Kenyans, including Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Jackson Angaine, James Gichuru, Eliud Ngala Mwendwa, Jeremiah Nyaga, Paul Ngei and George Anyona, today all dead.