Full Length Research Paper
The role of indigenous education
in children and youth behaviour
modification among the Tugen
people of Baringo sub-county,
Kenya
Mary J. Chepchieng1*,
Isaac Tarus2,
Joshia Osamba3
Abstract
World over, elders are the
custodians of knowledge and
instructors in indigenous
societies. Among the Tugen
people of Kenya, elders play
a role in transmission of
knowledge from one
generation to the next in
the society. This indigenous
system of education is both
informal and formal. In the
case of formal education,
the programmes of teaching
were restricted to certain
periods in the life of every
individual, notably the
period of initiation or
‘coming of age’ as
contextualized by Rodney
(1982). On the other hand,
the informal education was
mainly done through
story-telling, riddles and
proverbs. In this system of
education, parents had the
greatest responsibility for
imparting acceptable
societal morals to their
children and the youth. In
fact values such as honesty,
hard work, respect,
truthfulness, obedience and
good manners constituted the
broad based curriculum of
the Tugen youth. These
virtues played a role in
producing youth who were
morally upright and
hardworking. This paper
therefore highlights the key
responsibilities played by
the elders and parents in
moulding the behaviour of
children and the youth. In
the modern society, the
youth engage in a myriad of
anti-social behaviour that
include illicit sex and drug
abuse among others that
could be traced to failure
of particularly elders and
parents in teaching the
virtues of life to the youth
as already identified in the
forgoing analysis.
Key words: Formal
education, children culture,
indigenous education,
informal education, youth.
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