Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
The Somali are getting much cheekier. These people must learn submission by bullets — its the only school; after that you may begin more modern and humane methods of education.
In some parts of Kenya “modern and humane methods of education” appeared fairly shortly after the introduction of colonial administration, often as the result of missionary initiative, but for the Somali pastoralists this was not the case. Having “learnt submission by bullets” and having been finally disarmed by 1919, they then had to wait until the Second World War for any Government initiative in the sphere of education. Nor was the situation of the Somali township traders, who never offered any further armed resistance to the administration after 1894, any better. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to focus attention on some of the problems encountered in developing educational facilities for the Somali in Kenya and to analyse the factors that retarded this development.
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