Keynote address to the 2025 Comic Arts Festival, 14 March 2025
Kenya National Library, Nairobi
Thank you for this invitation. I was not sure whether I am the appropriate person to address the theme of using comics for learning. The reason is simple: I am a great critic of the new school system, and especially of its treatment of the arts. And from my struggle to articulate the issues with the school system, I learned that the philosophy of education and knowledge in Kenya is deeply, deeply flawed. That said, I understand my role here to be to explain how the visual arts, and specifically comics, can intervene in the school system by introducing fun to teaching and learning.
Kenya National Library, Nairobi
Thank you for this invitation. I was not sure whether I am the appropriate person to address the theme of using comics for learning. The reason is simple: I am a great critic of the new school system, and especially of its treatment of the arts. And from my struggle to articulate the issues with the school system, I learned that the philosophy of education and knowledge in Kenya is deeply, deeply flawed. That said, I understand my role here to be to explain how the visual arts, and specifically comics, can intervene in the school system by introducing fun to teaching and learning.
That concept of fun already highlights the fundamental issue I take with Kenyan schooling. Fun is about entertainment, not education. When we say that the arts can bring fun to learning science, we are saying that the arts are not something people learn. Rather, the arts are something that helps us teach something else. So if we are concerned about using comics to teach science concepts, the main subject here is STEM, and the value of the arts is subordinated to the value of STEM. And that’s the problem I have with CBC, and especially with its view of arts education. CBC does not see the arts as a legitimate form of knowledge in its own right. It sees the arts as a means to an end.
Arts education up to the 2010s
And actually, since colonial times, this has been the attitude of the school system towards the arts. When the British were in power, they did not envision the arts in the curriculum. They wanted not even STEM, where students would learn the principles of science and do experiments and innovation. What they wanted is technical subjects, where science is used to implement a goal that was pre-determined by Europeans, and not by Africans. In that logic, the arts were seen as a waste of time. In fact, the British said that 1) Africans had no arts to speak of, anyway, and 2) the arts would give Africans stupid ideas like that of freedom.
After independence, the Kenyan state continued to see the arts in this way. Moi thought that arts created rebels, and so he insisted that arts should be taught to teachers because teachers would be contained by the state.
That already should give you food for thought. It reveals that Moi saw teachers as safe, which means that the school is not intended as an institution where creativity is nurtured. So the violence and lack of creativity of our schooling system is not un-intended. It’s deliberate.
Since Moi, the public attitude towards the arts has undergone two major changes. Under the Kibaki era, the arts suffered the tag of being a useless subject that offered no development or commercial solutions. Business gurus went on TV and radio railing against our school system, calling Kenyan graduates half-baked and unhelpful in the workplace. The culprit was the arts, which they said, was the training of 80% of Kenyan university students. That data is inaccurate, but no one held the business leaders to account. We Kenyans did not push back and also ask whether we are educating our children only for employers.
The school system, especially the universities, also accepted this abuse and started to pressure arts departments to become “relevant.” The universities did this by reducing the arts to specific goals other than education. So instead of language arts like acting and poetry, we now taught communication and reading from a teleprompter. Instead of fine art, we taught graphic arts. Instead of history, we taught conflict studies. Instead of political science and sociology, we taught development studies.
The same reduction happened in the public. People no longer needed to learn music; they just needed to sing in the shower, enter and win a “talent” contest. Comedians started joining advertising agencies as creative directors. The church also started seeing that music and dance were essential to worship.
So even though the arts were now expanding to the market and the church, they were being reduced to specific, narrow goals. Now, the arts were acceptable IF, and only IF, there was a specific institution using them. It was now not only schools that could use the arts. The churches could use arts to keep the younger generation attending services, businesses could use the arts for marketing, media could use them for programming. But the central problem still remained: the arts are not for the people and their humanity.
Here is a clear illustration of this dynamic. In 2017, Ian Mwaura Njenga, a student at Bahati Boys High School, was expelled for drawing art that the school called “demonic.” After a hue and cry from the Kenyan public, the Nakuru County Education officer rescinded the expulsion but with a condition: he said that the young man had to undergo guidance and counselling. That incident reveals what the government and our education system think of the arts – they consider it a form of mental disorder that needs psychiatric and psychological intervention.
And actually, that is the attitude that capitalism has encouraged in Kenya. Artists are portrayed as people who are deviant, incoherent, and psychologically unhinged. And the tabloid industry promotes this view of artists. It floods the Kenyan public with stories of hedonism, consumerism, dysfunctional family life and even mental illness related to artists. When an artist takes their own life, there is no discussion of that incident indicating that society needs to ask itself serious questions. That is why, for example, Kenyan artists need to consider the jokes they make about alcohol consumption, especially in a country where we are more prone to addiction because the political economy is so dysfunctional. But this attitude explains why so few parents want their children to pursue arts education. The arts have a bad reputation.
After independence, the Kenyan state continued to see the arts in this way. Moi thought that arts created rebels, and so he insisted that arts should be taught to teachers because teachers would be contained by the state.
That already should give you food for thought. It reveals that Moi saw teachers as safe, which means that the school is not intended as an institution where creativity is nurtured. So the violence and lack of creativity of our schooling system is not un-intended. It’s deliberate.
Since Moi, the public attitude towards the arts has undergone two major changes. Under the Kibaki era, the arts suffered the tag of being a useless subject that offered no development or commercial solutions. Business gurus went on TV and radio railing against our school system, calling Kenyan graduates half-baked and unhelpful in the workplace. The culprit was the arts, which they said, was the training of 80% of Kenyan university students. That data is inaccurate, but no one held the business leaders to account. We Kenyans did not push back and also ask whether we are educating our children only for employers.
The school system, especially the universities, also accepted this abuse and started to pressure arts departments to become “relevant.” The universities did this by reducing the arts to specific goals other than education. So instead of language arts like acting and poetry, we now taught communication and reading from a teleprompter. Instead of fine art, we taught graphic arts. Instead of history, we taught conflict studies. Instead of political science and sociology, we taught development studies.
The same reduction happened in the public. People no longer needed to learn music; they just needed to sing in the shower, enter and win a “talent” contest. Comedians started joining advertising agencies as creative directors. The church also started seeing that music and dance were essential to worship.
So even though the arts were now expanding to the market and the church, they were being reduced to specific, narrow goals. Now, the arts were acceptable IF, and only IF, there was a specific institution using them. It was now not only schools that could use the arts. The churches could use arts to keep the younger generation attending services, businesses could use the arts for marketing, media could use them for programming. But the central problem still remained: the arts are not for the people and their humanity.
Here is a clear illustration of this dynamic. In 2017, Ian Mwaura Njenga, a student at Bahati Boys High School, was expelled for drawing art that the school called “demonic.” After a hue and cry from the Kenyan public, the Nakuru County Education officer rescinded the expulsion but with a condition: he said that the young man had to undergo guidance and counselling. That incident reveals what the government and our education system think of the arts – they consider it a form of mental disorder that needs psychiatric and psychological intervention.
And actually, that is the attitude that capitalism has encouraged in Kenya. Artists are portrayed as people who are deviant, incoherent, and psychologically unhinged. And the tabloid industry promotes this view of artists. It floods the Kenyan public with stories of hedonism, consumerism, dysfunctional family life and even mental illness related to artists. When an artist takes their own life, there is no discussion of that incident indicating that society needs to ask itself serious questions. That is why, for example, Kenyan artists need to consider the jokes they make about alcohol consumption, especially in a country where we are more prone to addiction because the political economy is so dysfunctional. But this attitude explains why so few parents want their children to pursue arts education. The arts have a bad reputation.
The arts and social media
However, since the 2010s, another thing was happening. While this war on the arts was taking place, social media was also allowing artists to bypass the businesses, the concert halls, the museums and other institutions and make their art directly accessible to the public. People could share their cartoons and paintings online without having to look for a newspaper, book publisher or art gallery to display them.
So much as it hated the arts, the Kenyan state was realizing that it could no longer contain the arts. Luckily for them, UNESCO had now come up with the language of “the creative economy.” In other words, the arts were now being seen as a cash crop. A cash crop is a plant that is cultivated for sale abroad, rather than local consumptions. Similarly, the interest in the arts was still not in how the arts serves society. Instead of us creating a political economy where all sectors thrive, politicians could now tell young people to keep doing what they were doing on social media, and something might come out of it. This logic was introduced into the education system with the Competency Based Curriculum and its concept of “talent.”
So much as it hated the arts, the Kenyan state was realizing that it could no longer contain the arts. Luckily for them, UNESCO had now come up with the language of “the creative economy.” In other words, the arts were now being seen as a cash crop. A cash crop is a plant that is cultivated for sale abroad, rather than local consumptions. Similarly, the interest in the arts was still not in how the arts serves society. Instead of us creating a political economy where all sectors thrive, politicians could now tell young people to keep doing what they were doing on social media, and something might come out of it. This logic was introduced into the education system with the Competency Based Curriculum and its concept of “talent.”
The talent pathway in CBC
Now, I cannot say this enough: talent is NOT the arts. And unfortunately, the people who most need to understand the threat of talent as an idea, but don’t, are Kenyan artists. “Talent” generally describes that inexplicable, unique ability of an individual that cannot be attributed to anybody or anything. Except God, maybe. Talent is something you are born with. And as the Ministry of Education officials kept telling us, everybody has a talent.
Arts, on the other hand, is knowledge and work. The arts come from culture, experience, history, and most of all, dialogue with the world. Arts is how we respond to the world through tunes, color, words, dance and other media. Our artistic expression is nurtured and refined through interaction with other artists and through exposure to other arts. That, in a nutshell, is what arts education should provide. By contrast, arts in CBC is a space for “do whatever you want and we’ll call it art.” Here’s an example of what CBC is promoting as arts education. A teacher in a prominent school said this:
Arts, on the other hand, is knowledge and work. The arts come from culture, experience, history, and most of all, dialogue with the world. Arts is how we respond to the world through tunes, color, words, dance and other media. Our artistic expression is nurtured and refined through interaction with other artists and through exposure to other arts. That, in a nutshell, is what arts education should provide. By contrast, arts in CBC is a space for “do whatever you want and we’ll call it art.” Here’s an example of what CBC is promoting as arts education. A teacher in a prominent school said this:
…“unlike the 8-4-4 grading system where a teacher instructs and lets learners demonstrate their level of understanding during one-off written exams, CBC is a progressive hands-on learning process that allows learners to demonstrate their innate abilities with very little teacher input.
“There’s something called scaffolding where a complex concept is made simpler through steps; a learner is given paint, a brush [and told] try and paint we see how you are painting. The teacher or facilitator withdraws instructions as the learner progresses so by that, you are able to assess the skill acquisition,” he said.
“When he [the student] starts, he could be struggling but when he continues through scaffolding, he is able to see.”
What the teacher is presenting as learner-driven activity here is, in reality, a teacher not assuming the responsibility to guide and mentor the child. And this hands-off position of the teacher is not how the great painters we know learned to paint. They were actually taught how to use strokes and colors. They were shown paintings by mature artists. They apprenticed in the studios of master painters where they saw the master painters at work. That is how the Wakamba learned sculpting from the Makonde who came to Kenya. But CBC is minimizing that slow process of guidance. It is diminishing and withdrawing adult intervention in learning because, in the parlance of neoliberals, teaching is dictatorship.
In other words, CBC is promoting an ideology that disconnects our children from us, the older generations. This means under CBC, the intervention you artists would like to have in Kenyan schools will most likely not be welcomed. And of course, Ministry of Education officials will refute this argument. They will even allow you to perform some sort of intervention in the school system by meeting with you, but they will not allow any arts education that fundamentally challenges this ideology.
The second problem with reducing arts to “talent,” is that talent makes us disrespect the arts as a skill that is learned, of work that is done, and of legacy that is passed on. We have all experienced what the idea of talent implies. It means that Kenyans refuse to pay for our artwork, because they do not consider our work useful. I mean, why should I pay you for artwork when you have put no knowledge or skill into it? You’re just doing what God made you to do. And yet, the work artists do is more than simply illustrating the work of others. Artists make concepts understandable. They put a mirror to our societies. They cultivate our emotional lives. They strengthen our communication skills. They sharpen our understanding. The work which artists do is necessary for a humane society.
From what the parents have been told about CBC, there’s no arts. There’s talent. And the talent pathway is separate from the sciences. In 2019, the director of KICD even said that children in poor areas like Tana River county, who do not have access to laptops, need to realize that science is not their talent and they can become DJs instead. Think of that for a minute. DJs use laptops to sync their playlist. So how is science not a part of music? Music is produced by airwaves hitting our vocal chords, and amplified by microphones, and the sound we hear is determined by acoustics. We’ve all been at events – especially church services, where the sound is sooo bad, it feels like the noise is scratching our ear drums. That’s more than a talent problem. It’s a failure to understand the physics of sound. So arts and science interact with each other all time. To keep separating one as the illustrator of the other, as the consolation prize in case one does not access the other, is a form of violence.
This separation between the arts and other forms of knowledge is the last dysfunction of our school system that I want to highlight. Here we are, proposing that cartoons or comics can be used to explain science. For that to happen, artists are supposed to understand science in order to illustrate it. But just this week, a top Ministry of Education official said that students studying the arts and humanities would be confused if they also had to study mathematics. So what STEM are we proposing to illustrate when we’re not being allowed to learn it? Remember, that artists cannot illustrate that which they have not either understood, or at least grappled with.
So, to come back to the question of arts as a way to make learning “fun.” We need to be careful about ideas like this that seem common sense. “Fun” is not something we should aspire for in learning. Learning is work. There are things children learn unconsciously, and others which they learn while being aware of themselves learning. The teacher’s work includes both. Our job as teachers is to try in as many ways as possible to make knowledge accessible to children. Fun is only one of them. But even then, we need to remember that not everything is learned at the time it is taught. Sometimes exposure to concepts is enough, and the lesson clicks much later on in a person’s life. Are there not things you heard about in class, that made sense years later, when you started working? That is how life is. Life is always teaching us, and we are always learning.
So we do not need to bribe children with “fun” to learn, like using sugar to make a child swallow bitter medicine. We should not treat science as something bitter to swallow, and the arts as the honey of entertainment to make that process easier. Arts are knowledge with their own value, the sciences are another type of knowledge with their own value. All the diverse types of knowledge enrich the human experience. A concept in science may easier to understand when a child develops the ability to understand multiple layers of something at the same time, a skill which they learn through symbolism in art, for example. Understanding comics also teaches children to develop different types of intellectual knowledge.
So we need to teach all subjects in their own right. If we reduce the arts to a fun way to learn science, we will be teaching children not to deal with information unless they find it entertaining. But there is a lot of knowledge we need to have that is necessary but not necessarily entertaining. That doesn’t mean that learning should be violent, as it currently is.
In other words, CBC is promoting an ideology that disconnects our children from us, the older generations. This means under CBC, the intervention you artists would like to have in Kenyan schools will most likely not be welcomed. And of course, Ministry of Education officials will refute this argument. They will even allow you to perform some sort of intervention in the school system by meeting with you, but they will not allow any arts education that fundamentally challenges this ideology.
The second problem with reducing arts to “talent,” is that talent makes us disrespect the arts as a skill that is learned, of work that is done, and of legacy that is passed on. We have all experienced what the idea of talent implies. It means that Kenyans refuse to pay for our artwork, because they do not consider our work useful. I mean, why should I pay you for artwork when you have put no knowledge or skill into it? You’re just doing what God made you to do. And yet, the work artists do is more than simply illustrating the work of others. Artists make concepts understandable. They put a mirror to our societies. They cultivate our emotional lives. They strengthen our communication skills. They sharpen our understanding. The work which artists do is necessary for a humane society.
From what the parents have been told about CBC, there’s no arts. There’s talent. And the talent pathway is separate from the sciences. In 2019, the director of KICD even said that children in poor areas like Tana River county, who do not have access to laptops, need to realize that science is not their talent and they can become DJs instead. Think of that for a minute. DJs use laptops to sync their playlist. So how is science not a part of music? Music is produced by airwaves hitting our vocal chords, and amplified by microphones, and the sound we hear is determined by acoustics. We’ve all been at events – especially church services, where the sound is sooo bad, it feels like the noise is scratching our ear drums. That’s more than a talent problem. It’s a failure to understand the physics of sound. So arts and science interact with each other all time. To keep separating one as the illustrator of the other, as the consolation prize in case one does not access the other, is a form of violence.
This separation between the arts and other forms of knowledge is the last dysfunction of our school system that I want to highlight. Here we are, proposing that cartoons or comics can be used to explain science. For that to happen, artists are supposed to understand science in order to illustrate it. But just this week, a top Ministry of Education official said that students studying the arts and humanities would be confused if they also had to study mathematics. So what STEM are we proposing to illustrate when we’re not being allowed to learn it? Remember, that artists cannot illustrate that which they have not either understood, or at least grappled with.
So, to come back to the question of arts as a way to make learning “fun.” We need to be careful about ideas like this that seem common sense. “Fun” is not something we should aspire for in learning. Learning is work. There are things children learn unconsciously, and others which they learn while being aware of themselves learning. The teacher’s work includes both. Our job as teachers is to try in as many ways as possible to make knowledge accessible to children. Fun is only one of them. But even then, we need to remember that not everything is learned at the time it is taught. Sometimes exposure to concepts is enough, and the lesson clicks much later on in a person’s life. Are there not things you heard about in class, that made sense years later, when you started working? That is how life is. Life is always teaching us, and we are always learning.
So we do not need to bribe children with “fun” to learn, like using sugar to make a child swallow bitter medicine. We should not treat science as something bitter to swallow, and the arts as the honey of entertainment to make that process easier. Arts are knowledge with their own value, the sciences are another type of knowledge with their own value. All the diverse types of knowledge enrich the human experience. A concept in science may easier to understand when a child develops the ability to understand multiple layers of something at the same time, a skill which they learn through symbolism in art, for example. Understanding comics also teaches children to develop different types of intellectual knowledge.
So we need to teach all subjects in their own right. If we reduce the arts to a fun way to learn science, we will be teaching children not to deal with information unless they find it entertaining. But there is a lot of knowledge we need to have that is necessary but not necessarily entertaining. That doesn’t mean that learning should be violent, as it currently is.
Comics in education
Now, I’m almost sure this was not what you expected me to say. I suspect that what you wanted me to address is the material concern about how cartoonists and comic storytellers can access the school market through book illustrations or even comic books as text books. My answer to that question is that in the current system as it is, you would have to sell your soul. You would have to make the arts subordinate to science, you would have to kneel before the censors at KICD, and you would have to reduce yourselves to illustrators of what the government considers “acceptable” content. If you decide to do, for example, science fiction or comics to explain science concepts, you would need, for example, the patronage of UNESCO or other foreign donors to talk to the Kenya government, because the Kenya government – especially Jogoo House – listens only to foreigners. They do not respect Kenyans as generators of knowledge. They see us Kenyans as implementers of knowledge from outside Kenya.
Should you take this route, you will encounter a paradox. By demeaning the value of the arts, and by rendering the arts subordinate to science, you would be affirming the already bad attitude to the arts that is already in the school system. So the schools will simply continue not take the arts seriously. Which means even parents won’t take the arts seriously.
Right now, we are bracing for a fight over the pathways which grade 10 children will be entering next year. I can almost predict with certainty that few parents will want their children to pursue the talent pathway. There are hardly any fine arts teachers anyway, because the colleges are not training them, because the fine arts are not an examinable subject in the outgoing 8.4.4 system. A few months ago, I got credible information that only 14 public schools in Kenya are offering art at KCSE level. Think of that. 14. And TSC does not employ teachers to teach a subject the teacher did not study in high school. So art teachers can only come from those 14 schools.
The cure for this mess is to fight for the arts to be respected as a subject in its own ways. Personally, I think the pathways must be removed. If a child wants to study history, art and mathematics, they should be allowed to. That’s the child that who become the next science comic illustrator. That child will not come from being told that mathematics is too confusing for someone who loves literature.
To borrow the words of Brown vs. Board of Education, the US court ruling against school segregation, there’s nothing like separate but equal subjects. Separate subjects mean unequal subjects. Pathways mean that the arts will always be treated as an appendage, as something for children who do not perform well in academics or science. And those children will be invariably those attending poorly equipped schools. And that attitude towards the arts has an implication for ALL KNOWLEDGE, not just the arts. It means we remain mediocre, uncreative, and unimaginative. It means that Kenyans will remain blocked from inventing, innovating and creating, even as institutions perform innovation by creating hubs and innovation funds.
Just this morning, Dr. Joyce Nyairo posted on X something that I think explains this distinction between substance and performance. In response to the president’s stunt of serving chapati to children yesterday, she said:
Should you take this route, you will encounter a paradox. By demeaning the value of the arts, and by rendering the arts subordinate to science, you would be affirming the already bad attitude to the arts that is already in the school system. So the schools will simply continue not take the arts seriously. Which means even parents won’t take the arts seriously.
Right now, we are bracing for a fight over the pathways which grade 10 children will be entering next year. I can almost predict with certainty that few parents will want their children to pursue the talent pathway. There are hardly any fine arts teachers anyway, because the colleges are not training them, because the fine arts are not an examinable subject in the outgoing 8.4.4 system. A few months ago, I got credible information that only 14 public schools in Kenya are offering art at KCSE level. Think of that. 14. And TSC does not employ teachers to teach a subject the teacher did not study in high school. So art teachers can only come from those 14 schools.
The cure for this mess is to fight for the arts to be respected as a subject in its own ways. Personally, I think the pathways must be removed. If a child wants to study history, art and mathematics, they should be allowed to. That’s the child that who become the next science comic illustrator. That child will not come from being told that mathematics is too confusing for someone who loves literature.
To borrow the words of Brown vs. Board of Education, the US court ruling against school segregation, there’s nothing like separate but equal subjects. Separate subjects mean unequal subjects. Pathways mean that the arts will always be treated as an appendage, as something for children who do not perform well in academics or science. And those children will be invariably those attending poorly equipped schools. And that attitude towards the arts has an implication for ALL KNOWLEDGE, not just the arts. It means we remain mediocre, uncreative, and unimaginative. It means that Kenyans will remain blocked from inventing, innovating and creating, even as institutions perform innovation by creating hubs and innovation funds.
Just this morning, Dr. Joyce Nyairo posted on X something that I think explains this distinction between substance and performance. In response to the president’s stunt of serving chapati to children yesterday, she said:
And spectacle is not art.
“Art makes you think.
Spectacle makes you talk.”
[It’s] Cheap talk; like the way you chatter after a fireworks display, not the way you are fired up to debate the meanings of a painting.
A lot of what the government passes off as art, like “talent,” or “creative economy,” or “innovation,” is simply spectacle. It doesn’t make us think; it just makes us engage in cheap talk, and does not fire us up to debate meaning or appreciate aesthetics.
What are the practical implications of what I’ve said? Practically, it means all Kenyan artists – from the visual and performing arts – need to come together and demand arts training for teachers, and an arts curriculum that actually contains books by all the artists sitting here. By now, universities should be offering fine arts units specific to comics, and whose curriculum includes biographies and cartoon books from Kenyan comic artists. There should be academic publications on the evolutions of style of Kenyan artists. There should be exhibitions held in Kenyan museums and libraries, not just in foreign funded cultural centers. Artist have to aggressively pursue an agenda to place the arts in their rightful place as a field of knowledge in Kenya.
In other words, my message to you today is to be more ambitious. Aim not just to be included in the school system. Aim to restructure our education altogether, so that the arts are respected like every other subject. And then knowledge, no matter which subject it comes from, thrives.
Thank you.
What are the practical implications of what I’ve said? Practically, it means all Kenyan artists – from the visual and performing arts – need to come together and demand arts training for teachers, and an arts curriculum that actually contains books by all the artists sitting here. By now, universities should be offering fine arts units specific to comics, and whose curriculum includes biographies and cartoon books from Kenyan comic artists. There should be academic publications on the evolutions of style of Kenyan artists. There should be exhibitions held in Kenyan museums and libraries, not just in foreign funded cultural centers. Artist have to aggressively pursue an agenda to place the arts in their rightful place as a field of knowledge in Kenya.
In other words, my message to you today is to be more ambitious. Aim not just to be included in the school system. Aim to restructure our education altogether, so that the arts are respected like every other subject. And then knowledge, no matter which subject it comes from, thrives.
Thank you.
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