Forest Secondary School
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CHAPTER 5 FOREST SECONDARY SCHOOL Schooling, Inequality, and Naural Science Education in Rural Kenya Rising from the relatively featureless and expansive Tsavo plains are the Taita Hills, a unique and dramatic geologic feature isolated in the Taita-Taveta District of the Coast Province. Taita-Taveta District encompasses some 17,000 square kilometers (10,500 square miles) and stretches southeast from the arid and semi-arid lands of Makueni District (in Eastern Province) and Kajiado District (in Rift Valley Province) to the coastal plains of Kwale District. In the western and southern portions of the district lie the dusty border town of Taveta and unpopulated thorny bush-land leading to the Tanzanian border. Located in the eastern portion of the district, the Taita Hills offer a sharp contrast to the thorny expanses of Kenya’s southeastern plains. With lush (yet shrinking) patches of endemic forests and rainfall that is intermittent throughout the hills (and sometimes devastating in the upper elevations), the hills provide adequate natural resources for small-scale agricultural cultivation and light manufacturing. Individual homes, linked by well-worn footpaths and tarmac roads connecting local village centers, clutter the hillsides from the very lowest elevations all the way to the highest point in the district (and province) at 2,207 meters (7,244 feet). The geographically isolated Taita Hills, with sparse electrification, few roads (some of which are seasonally impassable), and a reliance on small-scale agriculture, provided an ideal setting for gathering rural perspectives on indigenous and school natural science knowledge and practices. The area is inhabited mainly by people of the Taita tribe, an ethnic group of mixed ancestry who settled in the hills as late as the 16th century (Spear, 1982). The Taita people are estimated to have a population near 350,000 nationwide (Kenya Ministry of Planning and National Development, 2001). The language of the Taita (Kidabida) is Bantu in origin; therefore, the Taita share linguistic traditions with some of the larger ethnic groups in Kenya, such as the Kikuyu and Kamba, who inhabit the areas of central Kenya and parts of the Rift Valley. The Taita’s predominant Christianity is the result of steady missionary influence throughout the lowland and highland areas of the hills since the late 1800s (Spear, 1982). Economic activity in the Taita Hills centers on small-scale agricultural production on plots (shambas) that are terraced into the undulating landscape. These agricultural products are destined either for local sale and consumption, or export to urban centers and the tourist hotels on the coast to the north and south of Mombasa, nearly 160 kilometers (100 miles) away. Wage-labor, in the form of metal working, construction, and service employment, exists to a very limited extent in the town of Wundanyi, 63 CHAPTER 5 where the Kenyan government’s district offices are located. Wundanyi also serves as the major launching point for rural development and extension work in the hills by international governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Plan International, The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE). Throughout the hills and the lowlands of the district, primary schools are found tucked into ravines, on hillsides, or next to the few winding tarmac or maram (laterite) roads that race across the dry expanses of the Tsavo Plains. Secondary schools are more uncommon and are mainly located within reasonable distances from the main town centers of Voi, Mwatate, and Taveta in the lowland areas, and Wundanyi and Mgange in the hills. Photo 1. View to the west of the terraced Taita Hills. FOREST SECONDARY SCHOOL Nestled high in the Taita Hills was Forest Secondary School, a small collection of tin-roofed mud and concrete buildings in close proximity to one of the main routes meandering through the hills. In 2006, there were 188 primary schools and thirty- nine secondary schools in the district (Kenyaweb, 2006).1 Forest Secondary was begun as a Harambee school in the early 1970s by a Christian church in order to accommodate the physical, intellectual, and spiritual needs of Taita Christians. The local community banded together to finance the entire 64.