In 1924, the colonial government running Kenya passed a new law on education. The new law recognised the role of missionaries in providing education and committed to helping missionaries with financial aid to start schools and with their management through inspections. Due to their previous experiences with the government, Catholic missionaries were sceptical about its support. Not so Fr Michael Joseph Witte, a maverick from the Netherlands.
Fr Witte ran the missionary school for catechists (lay teachers of Catholicism) at Kilungu. Bishop Neville gave him the green light to start a secular school at Kilungu and described the assignment as oeuvre capitale—a work of paramount importance. After getting the go-ahead, Fr Witte convinced his bosses to start the school at Kabaa, an abandoned mission. He preferred Kabaa so that he could be far away from the interference of church and government authorities.
The Kabaa School admitted its first pupils on January 19, 1925. Despite the government’s funding frustrations, Fr Witte ran the school with boundless energy and wits until 1933. It was a roaring success. In 1934, his bosses sent him to Waa School in Kwale in the hope that he would make it equally successful.
Catholic missionaries didn’t have it easy in colonial Kenya. In 1862, the Vatican assigned the Holy Ghost Fathers from continental Europe to evangelise East Africa, stretching from the Cape of Guardafui north to the mouth of the River Zambezi south. When Kenya became a British colony, the non-British Catholic missionaries found the going quite challenging. By 1936, the Holy Ghost Fathers from continental Europe had been replaced by their confraternities from Ireland.
In 1934, the government recommended splitting the primary and high school sections of Kabaa. Bishop Heffernan resisted the idea. Finally, he bought the idea, and the high school was moved to Mangu village in Kiambu County, where it was renamed Holy Ghost College, Mangu, in 1940.
The school flourished in its new location. It admitted luminaries of Kenya’s independence era like Tom Mboya and President Mwai Kibaki. Other notable students of the 1940s include Servant of God Maurice Cardinal Otunga, former Vice President Moody Awori, and Prof George Saitoti. Other recognisable names included John Michuki, Industrialist Joe Wanjui, and publisher Hilary Ngweno.
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In 1957, Archbishop Gastone Mojaisky Perelli, the Apostolic delegate for East and West British Africa, invited Opus Dei, another institute of the Catholic church, to explore the possibility of starting a university in Kenya. However, it wasn’t possible to establish a university then because no school in the country offered levels of classes that were the gateway to university education in the British Empire.
In 1960, the colonial government allowed four schools to provide Africans with A-level classes. These were Alliance High School, Mangu, Government School Kakamega, and Shimo La Tewa. The Catholic authorities passed the rights of Mangu to Opus Dei to enable it to start Strathmore College. The College was the A-level school of Mangu until 1970 when Mangu started offering A-level classes.
The Holy Ghost Fathers wanted to concentrate on Parish work, so 1960 they invited the Marianist Brothers from the United States to run Mangu.
The Marianist Brothers hit the ground running. They started technical courses at Mangu, such as Aviation and radio transmission. They also started teaching French in Kenya and playing basketball.
The Brothers sought more land where they could run away and bought the land where the school is currently located along Thika Road. They started building there, and the new school was opened in 1972.
The Marianist Brothers were swept away by the Africanisation wave that hit immediately after Kenya became independent in 1963. Soon after opening the new campus, they handed the school to the first African head, Prof Raphael Njoroge.
By Eric Kathenya
The writer is an alumnus of Mangu School.
