Sustainable Teacher Workforce Development for Art Education in Kenya

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Thurseday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Sustainable development and knowledge production

Proposal

Sustainable workforce is the key element in educational field, especially for art education in the developing country context. Critically important are the arts to the developing minds and spirits of children. UNESCO considers art education as a fundamental instrument to enhance creativity, critical thinking, personal and cultural identities, and tolerance as well as acceptance in society (UNESCO 2012). However, many children do not have access to art education (UNESCO, 2006). In our partnering communities in Kilifi county, Kenya, public schools have arts as a mandatory subject in their curriculum, but they do not teach arts due to lack of a capable art teacher workforce, curriculum, and materials. Currently, there is no art education training in the East coastal region in Kenya, and the only art education training available is at Kenyatta University in the capital, Nairobi.

Acknowledging this disparity in art education, Mtree, a charity which has mobilized more than 200 international artists, has brought its arts programs to fill this gap since the year 2011. Mtree’s developed its art education curriculum from a series of field research, community focus group meetings and home visits in order to reflect the current local education status and characteristics of the partnering community, the children’s daily tasks as well as available local materials for arts and crafts.

A few years after the launch, Kenyan artists joined the program as assistant teachers, and provided valuable feedback in the teaching methodology and curriculum. Since then, the Kenyan artists have co-led the program with international artists and educators, creating a synergistic dynamic to bring a culturally sensitive art experience to children in rural communities. The impact of the inclusion of Kenyan artists was evaluated through individual and focus group interviews as well as quantitative self-evaluation prior to and after program participation. This Kenyan art workforce collaborated with international art educators and conducted a series of workshops at different universities, creating a movement to increase access to art education for children in rural communities in Kenya.

Recently, the Kenyan government initiated an educational reform in public school system, where various forms of arts were highlighted throughout the updated curriculum. With this curriculum reform stems the rising need of an art teacher workforce, Mtree established a formal partnership with Pwani University, the largest university in Kilifi, to implement an art education major within the Department of Education. International art educators formed a taskforce with Kenyan artists to study and develop training modules at a university-level which generates sustainable art teacher workforce.

We would like to introduce our trust-based and experiential collaboration with non-traditional teaching workforce in developing countries in the art education field. Knowing the incredible outcomes from this collaboration, we would have included Kenyan artists earlier in our program, accelerating this momentum of art education within Kenya. At the same time, we would like to continue inviting international artists as our workforce since the synergy and networks created between the Kenyan art workforce and international artists is a key motivator for Kenyan artists to join our program.

Authors

• Elsardt Kigen, University of Nairobi

• Linda Kemoli, Mtree

• Ji Won Song, Mtree

• Hyewon Lee, Mtree