Faith-based schooling in East Africa

State House Girl's High School in Nairobi


Osama bin Laden once said, “You are either with the Crusade, or Islam.” This summer, that definitely seems true—in Mexico, it was the Crusade, and in East Africa, it’s Islam (and the Crusades, too).

In my two-week crash course on Kenyan secondary schools, I learned that almost all (if not all) schools incorporate religious education as a required part of the curriculum. There simply are no secular secondary schools (or so few that choosing to go to one is not an option for most students). In the fee structure for each term or year (3 terms in a year, 4 years total), the Bible is included as a necessary expense. Masses are held, and religious classes are mandatory. You even get a grade that factors into your point total. A part of the national exam administered at the end of high school, called the KCSE (Kenyan certificate of secondary education), is devoted to religion—if you are Muslim, you take the Muslim version, if Christian, likewise. You have two or three choices—I think Hindu is now a choice, according to Kwai, What if you decline? It is rare, but possible. Most people don’t decline—they already have their tidy social designation.

Anyone who knows me can predict where I’m going with this: why not let people think for themselves? Why make religion part of the curriculum at all? What are you going to teach, anyway? Piety 101? Charity, modesty, honoring your parents? Those are life lessons. You have to choose them all by yourself.

But there’s more to it than that. Everyone is so neatly categorized. In Southern Sudan there’s the Dinka, the Nuer and the Murlee, and more that I don’t know about. In Kenya there are clear lines between Somalis, Ethiopians, and other expatriates. Within each nationality, clans and subclans exist. You should know your family’s ancestry; it’ll help you in case you need to stay at a distant relative’s home, or if your people are at war. A relative won’t turn you down or leave you hanging; it would look bad. Clan/tribe/family ties are so strong in places like East Africa (eg Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda)—no coincidence that these are nations utterly torn apart by civil war.

Of course, they’ve had help from outsiders, no doubt about that. Khartoum in Northern Sudan is the #1 slave trade spot. Egyptians have historically come there to steal human beings—particular Southern Sudanese—for bondage. The discovery of oil has drawn often destructive, purely self-interested international attention (like China’s). But the fact remains that the Hutus and the Tutsis tore each other apart on their own, as did the Hawiye and Darod in Ethiopia, and the Nuer and Dinka in the Bor Massacre in Southern Sudan (in 1991). They didn’t need any help.

Nor did they receive any. Yeah, it’s true that civil strive had to do with internal tribal/clan conflict, but it’s much more complex and much larger than I’m pretending for the purpose of this post. And regardless, for wealthy nations to stand by when the chips are down, and step in when they eye something shiny, is in some ways more abominable than the civil unrest itself.