Turkana Children’s Rights to Education and Indigenous Knowledge in Science Teaching in Kenya

Abstract

Using a qualitative ethnographic study of early childhood centres and lower primary schools operating in rural areas in a nomadic Turkana community of Kenya, this paper considers the failure of universal education to meet the culturally relevant educational needs of nomadic children. The study explored the extent to which the curriculum of schools in nomadic communities integrates indigenous epistemologies and social cultural lifestyles of the people in science instruction. Drawing from the literature and theories of indigenous people’s education in Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America, the paper discusses the critical role of indigenous epistemologies in science education.