Mourning the Passing of the ‘Father’ of Educational Studies in Kenya, Prof Daniel Namusonge Sifuna

• I first met Prof. Daniel Sifuna in 1986 at the University of Nairobi when he stumbled into the office of Prof. Gideon Saulo Were when we were in a tutorial group class meeting in Prof. Were’s office.
• He tutored us on how to live with professors and how to become ones. He always bought meals for us unlike other professors who expected reciprocity from students.
• He  worked with many universities in Africa, and won several awards and fellowships that enabled him to work as a visiting scholar in universities in the United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and other parts of Africa.

A leading fig tree (omukhuyu), senus africana (omuriba) and a living rock (lichina) of Kenya is gone.

The academic community in Kenya is mourning the passing of yet another academic giant, the renowned educationist and author Prof Daniel Namusonge Sifuna, who passed away on Thursday, October 23, 2024, in Nairobi, Kenya after a short illness.

Prof Sifuna worked for many years as a Professor of History of Education, and International and Comparative Education in the Department of Educational Foundations at Kenyatta University for many years.

Prof Sifuna was as great as they come. In 1993 while I was teaching at Moi University as a lecturer, I mentioned in an essay in the Saturday Nation edition that he was the ‘father’ of educational studies in Kenya, just like Prof. David Wasawo for Biological Sciences, Prof. Simeon Ominde was for Geography, Bethuel Allan Ogot for History, Ali A Mazrui for Political Science, Ngugi wa Thiong’o for Literature, Prof. Morris Sika Alala for Mathematics,among other leading scholars, which raised a lot of tensions, with some calling me out to conduct my investigation more carefully, meaning that they did not agree with my listing.

I received many calls and verbal corrections on the fact that Prof. Sifuna was an academic ‘youth’ when compared to the likes of Prof. Reuben Indire in educational studies in Kenya. At the time, I did not know that through my innocent essay, I had thrown a spanner into the works, that would take long in the minds of many, with some agreeing and while others disagreed.

From the above, you will notice that my admiration for Prof. Daniel Sifuna has been long and profound, and therefore I needed time to write this essay, celebrating his life and accomplishments in a unique way.

I have received some invitations on penning something on Prof. Daniel Sifuna in the press, perhaps going by what I have written on other prominent scholars in the past and I am gratified on account of the special relationship I have enjoyed with the late Prof. Sifuna.

I did not want an essay that just glorified his academic prowess but one that celebrated his human natured side and view of fairness in life, and his uniqueness as a person. As usual, I did not want to rush my remarks on his passing, due to the fact that Prof. Sifuna was like a father to me, and with massive contribution that could not captured in 1,000 words required by the Dailies. It needed more words. I knew him for over 30 years, enjoying close friendship and mentee-mentor relationship, that started in 1986 and remained strong until his passing.

In 1994, during an OSSREA conference at Kenyatta University, the Vice Chancellor Prof. George Eshiwani during his official speech, sought to publicly correct me for getting it wrong on the ‘father’ of educational studies in Kenya, without mentioning to the audience that I had given the honour to Prof. Daniel Sifuna, who was in the audience and who just smiled.

For a while I was very worried, because Prof. George Eshiwani was one of those ‘blue eyed’ boys of the ‘Nyayo’ era system, and on whose good side one needed to keep, but the conference organiser Prof. John Aluko Orodho assured me that Prof. Eshiwani did not keep such issues in his heart so long I did not repeat what he perceived as a mistake.

During the photo session with the Chief Guest, the VC Eshiwani, I believed the assurance from Prof. Orodho when Eshiwani himself invited me to stand right behind him in the group photograph, where he was seated, and told me afterwards that I wrote well but needed to be careful on what I wrote about, and that if I did so, I would go far. I took a break from writing in the press, for a while, until after 2002.

I was later told that Prof. Eshiwan and Prof. Sifuna did not see eye to eye on many issues, and for good reasons, because Prof. Sifuna, like Plato before him, did not allow those without deep knowledge and critical mind to enter his space.

I was also told that the two scholars arrived at professorship through different routes, with that of Prof. Sifuna regarded by some as more distinguished and solid.

After the reaction to my essay, Prof. Sifuna reached out to me and said that although he was not the first educationist in Kenya, his contribution was there for everyone to see and thanked me for recognizing him, thereby tacitly agreeing with me.

In 1994 during a Teaching Practice Workshop at Moi University, the then Deputy Vice Chancellor of Moi University Prof. Mathew K. Maleche picked on the same issue when he saw me in the audience, correcting the record, which he said I had got wrong. I did not respond.

Who was I to respond to the powers that be, as a junior lecturer in my 20s, struggling to put food on the table for my family. My colleagues like Fred Nafukho Muyia, Kenneth S. Inyani, Peter Kagwanja, agreed.

Later at a Historical Association of Kenya workshop at Maseno University, Prof. Bethuel Ogot thanked me for recognizing him as a pioneer scholar of history in Kenya, and in his typical humility added that he was just lucky to have had the first chance.

Except Wasawo, Ominde, Ogot, wa Thiong’o and Mazrui, the other scholars I had mentioned as pioneers in my 1993 essay, were dismissed as young and recent, missing my argument, which was based on the amount and quality of research and publications they had generated, and scholarly impact, and not merely on account of age. In attendance were colleagues John Mwaruvie, Onyango Odiyo, among others.

I first met Prof. Daniel Sifuna in 1986 at the University of Nairobi when he stumbled into the office of Prof. Gideon Saulo Were when we were in a tutorial group class meeting in Prof. Were’s office.

He knocked, opened the door and entered the office and found about ten of us, sitting around Prof. Were who later became my mentor and whom I later realized was close to Prof. Sifuna.

That day we were looking at European economic impact on development in Africa, using Walter Rodney’s book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. We were taken into an important lesson on how to be a professor when Prof. Were invited Prof. Sifuna to talk to our class on the impact of missionaries on education in Africa, even though he knew he had come in for a different reason.

We were surprised when Prof. Sifuna accepted the invitation and proceeded to talk to us for over one hour about missionary work in Kenya and the schools they established throughout the country, from Maseno and Alliance, to many other schools including Yala, Mang’u, Limuru, Tala, Tumutumu, Kaimosi, Butere, Bunyore, Lugulu, Chwele, Lwak, Asumbi, Ng’iya, Nyabururu, Ogande, among others. For an impromptu lecture, we were impressed. I remained behind to tidy Prof. Were’s office, and we had more conservation.

In the afternoon of the same day, there was a staff seminar which Prof. Were and Prof. Sifuna invited us to attend, for what we strongly believed was to fill up the Education Theater II with bodies, as audience, for the presentations.

Two of the graduate students [names remain confidential as they are now respected professors] were presenting papers on progress of their research. The seminar was interesting but very hot and as uninitiated academic greenhorns, we were taken aback with the roasting the two received, sometimes coming close to tears as they responded.

We noticed that the two students had some three rational professors in the audience who kept coming to their defence and one them was Prof. Daniel Sifuna. He came across as understanding, sympathetic and down to earth.

After the presentation, he was the first to get to the podium to offer congratulatory messages to the two victims, praising them and asking them not to give up. He was God-sent and revealed many academic and scholarly secrets to us.

I continued to meet Prof. Sifuna in Prof. Were’s office where I was an informal research assistant. I got books for Prof. Were and Prof. Sifuna from the library and making summaries of the books for Prof. Were, for their academic papers. Prof. Were sent me to post journal issues via the post office and occasionally asked me to deposit cheques for him from subscribers to the journals he edited and published.

Prof. Sifuna was one of the avid and active publishers in Prof. Were’s journals and edited books. It is through this interaction that I became close to Prof. Sifuna who later on came to my rescue during my masters seminar presentations in 1989 when I was doing my masters degree.

He made us learn how to answer questions from tough professors like Prof. William Ochieng and Prof. Henry Mwanzi. He asked us to simply thank them for their insights and state that we liked their points of view and that we were going to incorporate their views in our revised works, which he told us that would not matter after the presentation as one could have the freedom to add or ignore the comments.

The advice from Prof. Sifuna worked wonders for us and we survived the masters degree. I graduated after four long years and was employed as a lecturer at Moi University. It was Prof. Sifuna and Prof. Were who first took me to the Senior Common Room of the University of Nairobi in 1989.

They had tried previously to get me in but I was denied entry on account of being an undergraduate until I became a graduate student in 1989 and Prof. Sifuna and I had the last laugh.

He tutored us on how to live with professors and how to become ones. He always bought meals for us unlike other professors who expected reciprocity from students. He was always ready to assist poorer students who were threatened with dropping out.

He paid fees for one of our colleagues in the masters programme and together with Prof. Were, he assisted me with transport when I was going for my job interview at Moi University for lecturer position for which I was successful.

Prof. Sifuna was the first Professor Emeritus of Kenyatta University. Prof. Sifuna received his B. Ed degree from Makerere University in Uganda.

Some professors who came from Makerere were proud and arrogant, but not Prof. Sifuna. We understood their arrogance because less than 5% of students made it to Makerere which indicated that one needed to work so hard to get there.

He talked fondly about Makerere, especially about the military coup of Idi Amin which disrupted their studies. Prof. Sifuna received his M.A. (Education) and Ph.D from University of Nairobi. He published several books which include An Introductory History of Education (which Prof. Sifuna wrote with Prof. James Otiende) in 1986.

Prof. Sifuna wrote Challenges of Quality Education in Sub-Saharan African Countries: Education in a Competitive and Globalizing World Series (with Nobuhide Sawamura) in 2010.

He also wrote Development of education in Africa The Kenyan experience (2010) which became one of the leading books on history of education in Africa.

He also wrote Achieving Education for All: Dilemmas in System-Wide Reforms and Learning Outcomes in Africa (2016).

Prof. Sifuna also published Changing Trends in the Financing of Public Universities in Africa: Implications on Management and Quality Education (with Nabiswa Wasike) in 2017. In 2018, Prof. Sifuna published Universal Primary Education in Africa: English Speaking Countries (together with Isabella M. Kamere).

Other books he published included Contextualizing and Organizing Contingent Faculty: Reclaiming Academic Labor in Universities (2018). Prof. Sifuna published The Development of Tertiary Education in the Eastern African Region (with Isabella M. Musyoka-Kamere) in 2023.

Prof. Sifuna was generous. In 2015, he paid conference registration fee for five graduate students from Kenyatta University who were attending a conference at Kisii University where I worked as Deputy Vice Chancellor at the time.

I was touched by the great generosity. My first copy of An Introductory History of Education (which Prof. Sifuna wrote with Prof. James Otiende) was handed to me by Prof. Daniel Sifuna, for free in 1987.

My first copy of Walter Rodney’s book came from Prof. Sifuna on the same day Prof. Were gave me a free copy of his East Africa Through A Thousand Years.

Many people did not therefore understand why I gave Prof. Sifuna free copies of any book that I wrote. Prof. Sifuna wrote many articles in education in national and international journals, in Kenya and abroad.

In July 2019, Prof. Sifuna and Mark Obonyo published an influential essay on “Competency Based Curriculum in Primary Schools in Kenya: Prospects and Challenges of Implementation” in the Journal of Popular Education in Africa, 3(7), 39 – 50 which has been cited over 5,000 times by other scholars, thereby raising the impact factor of the same journal, and Kenyan scholarship. By the time of his passing, he had the highest impact factor among education professors in Kenya.

Prof. Sifuna travelled to all continents in the world, from Europe, Asia, Latin America to North America and held many prominent positions in academia and professional organisations in Kenya and abroad.

He  worked with many universities in Africa, and won several awards and fellowships that enabled him to work as a visiting scholar in universities in the United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and other parts of Africa.

He told me many of his travels were sponsored, usually to attend and present research papers at conferences.

By the time of his passing, on Thursday, October 23, 2024, Prof. Sifuna and I were working on a book together, under the patronage of Prof. Francis Aduol.

Prof. Sifuna had given me feedback on how the book should progress, focusing on academic icons from Western Kenya and who benefitted from the missionary factor in the history of education in Kenya, and on which he wrote extensively.

I started writing this essay on the day he passed on Thursday, October 23, 2024 after I was informed about his demise by one of his former doctoral students Dr. Isabella Musyoka-Kamere of Kenyatta University.

Dr. Isabella Musyoka-Kamere, Dr. Mary Chepkemoi, Dr. Jackton Ogeno, Dr. Rubai Mandela and Dr. Mark Obonyo were among few scholars who knew how close I was with Prof. Sifuna, being witnesses to my frequent academic interactions with him.

I wrote the first draft, on the passing of Prof. Sifuna while in rural Vihiga, but felt that it was not deep enough because it did not bring out how his persona and simplicity inspired many young scholars, like myself while still in first year at the University of Nairobi.

Last week, I was attending the burial of my first cousin Rev. Moses Ajega Ogembo of Friends Church who died the same week with Prof. Daniel Sifuna, and which did give me enough time.

We will find comfort in the fact that Prof. Sifuna had talked about his age on many occasions. Each time I invited him to a workshop, he would mention that he was old and needed to rest.

He still remained vibrant, supervising many students and mentoring many others. We shall surely miss him, but appreciate the fact that he has left us so many books and articles which continue to illuminate his legacy.

I will request my colleagues at our annual international interdisciplinary conference to dedicate one panel on the life and times of Prof. Sifuna and dedicate one volume to his memory as part of the celebration of his illustrious career.

When an omukhuyu tree falls, many birds and other creatures which shelter under it become destitute. There are many destitutes in Kenya and the world today at the passing on of Prof. Sifuna. I pass my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. May God rest his soul in eternal peace.