Kenyan Professor Who Skipped High School

Tales have been told of Kenyans who defied odds to achieve success. However, the story of one Professor Karega Mutahi is one of a kind because despite not going to high school, he went on to hold top government jobs.

According to a report by the Daily Nation, the former Ministry of Education PS was born in a poor family, struggled with his education, but never gave up. 

"I never went to any high school. In fact, in primary school, I had to repeat a class in primary," Mutahi confessed. He went on to reveal that he sat for the Certificate of Primary Education in 1963, scoring an A in English, B in Mathematics, and a D in the general paper.

The scholar secured employment after finishing his elementary studies, as an untrained teacher at Kiru Primary School in Murang'a.

This paved the way for him to join Kigari Teachers Training College, which was offering basic teaching skills to class eight leavers. Mutahi never enrolled in a secondary school, he only registered for exams at different levels. 

At Kigari, Mutahi enrolled for the Kenya English Test, and later sat the Kenya Junior Secondary Examination (KJSE) which was sat for at Form Two level. At that moment, he was teaching in Thika. 

He passed his KJSE and enrolled for O-level exams in 1967, scoring a Second Division, then enrolled for A-level exams in 1968. He later sat for the mature age entrance examination, then administered by the University of East Africa, and passed, allowing him to gain admission to the University of Nairobi in 1973. 

At UoN, he studied a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and scaled higher, acquiring a Master of Arts in linguistics from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in linguistics from the University of Nairobi.

In 2009, during his tenure as Education PS, he was roped into the suspected loss of Ksh178 million from the free primary school programme through dishonest accounting. He denied the allegations. 

Other ministries that he served under include Agriculture, Livestock Development and Marketing, Office of the Vice President, and Planning and National Development.

He has 19 publications to his name and was also awarded the Order of the Chief of Burning Spear.

Mutahi currently serves as the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee (IGTRC). This is a body formed by an Act of Parliament to establish a framework for consultation and co-operation between the national and county governments.