In Focus: Marangu Njogu
24 August 2021
Dr. Marangu Njogu is the CEO of Windle International, providing strategic leadership and bringing together the international and regional strategies for Windle. Marangu has three honorary doctorate degrees from Guelph University, University of British Columbia, and York University. He is an internationally-recognized leader in the development of refugee education whose work over almost three decades has transformed the lives of thousands of refugees in Kenya.
Marangu spoke with Hellen Zziwa, a member of the Refugee REACH team and Windle alumna, about his work, the challenges of providing quality instruction in refugee camp settings, and the importance of supporting young learners throughout their educational journeys.
Disclaimer: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What brings you to this work?
I worked as a teacher trainer in the special education space in Kenya long before I was aware of the need for refugee education. It was during one teacher training session when I first encountered a refugee student. As I got to know him, my interest in discovering the educational needs of refugees developed. When an opportunity to work with CARE International in the Dadaab refugee camps presented itself, I jumped at the chance to learn more.
How has the provision of education for refugee youth in Dadaab changed since you first began your work there?
When I got to Dadaab refugee camps in 1985, education of students was focused on imparting basic literacy and arithmetic skills. The prevailing sentiment at that time was that refugee students were only in the camps for a limited period of time, meaning that any further investment in their education was impractical.
In 1997, CARE International formalized instruction to follow the Kenyan curriculum. The first class to sit for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) had 10 students, supported by 10 trained teachers to help them in the newly introduced Kenyan curriculum. When all 10 students passed the exam, the Kenyan government allowed them to attend a boarding secondary school outside the camps, in Garissa town, 120 kilometers from the refugee camps.
By 2000, having approximately 125 students ready for secondary school, UNHCR built three secondary schools, one in each camp in Dadaab: Ifo, Dagahaley, and Hagadera. As student success stories accumulated, more parents decided to send their children to school, thus putting pressure on the available resources.
In 2008, with demand far exceeding capacity and inability by UNHCR to build additional schools, the parents in the refugee camps decided to forego their rations to build three other schools, dubbed “community schools.” These schools were underfunded and lacked the resources of the UNHCR run schools until Windle decided to take them under their wing and standardize the provision of secondary education across the camp.
“My intention is to provide students with education that has the capacity to open doors. I believe that recognized credentials at the end of training are important, otherwise we will have failed.”
How have you been able to meet the demand for quality instruction?
Financial constraints forced us to recruit 50% trained teachers and 50% untrained teachers. The untrained teachers were our secondary school graduates who had performed well in secondary school. They were teacher assistants and were paired with the trained teachers for pedagogical support.
In the meantime, we reached out to various universities for assistance in delivering formal teacher training in the camps. York University, University of British Columbia, Kenyatta University, and Moi University collaborated to establish a satellite campus in Dadaab under the umbrella of Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) in 2013. This training project was funded by the Global Affairs Canada. Later in 2018, the MasterCard Foundation funded a two-year teacher education program, Quality Secondary Education in Emergencies (Q-SEE), in Kakuma. This program was delivered through a collaboration between Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Kenyatta University.
What motivates your decisions regarding the type of educational opportunities you prioritize in your work?
My intention is to provide students with education that has the capacity to open doors. I believe that recognized credentials at the end of training are important, otherwise we will have failed.
What changes would you like to see within the field of education?
The way we provide education in many developing countries does not encourage students to fulfil their potential. I have observed students devastated by failure of exams because they believe their lives are over. How can we support young people so that they do not label themselves failures? We need to work to identify areas of potential in students that can be groomed to ensure that they understand that grades that lead to higher education is just one option and that there are other paths to leading a successful life. And we need to redouble our efforts to create and ensure equitable access to these other paths.