With the coming of political Independence for Kenya and the departure of the British Colonial administration, the new African government with Jomo Kenyatta as the head, inherited many novel problems. High on the list was the reorganization of education to conform and serve the needs of the new nation.
The University was thus charged with the task of providing the country with all the needed trained and educated manpower. The University was also charged with the task of helping the country's political leaders design a viable economic path that would lead the country out of the inherited abject poverty and into heights of development for the new nation.
But soon the University education was disrupted by numerous students' strikes and confrontations against the policies of the new African government.
The problem of this study was, therefore, to present an historical analysis of the numerous strikes, confrontations and conflicts that have taken place in the University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University College from 1960 to 1978.
In its procedures and methodology, this study utilized an historical systematic approach in a chronological manner.
The information presented was largely gathered from various Kenyan and foreign newspapers, weeklies, journals, Kenya government publications and from many books on Kenya.
The findings indicated a collapse of university education in Kenya. Rampant strikes, confrontations and conflicts between the student body and the university administration. A hostile relationship between the government and the university community. A deviant student body that has attained the role of a political opposition within the one party state; central issues in their protests have been; political detentions, political intimidations, political murders, tribalism, economic inequality and many other issues. A need for the government, the university community, the university administration and the Kenyan tax-payers to hold a moratorium on the many university problems if the role of university education is to benefit the Republic of Kenya.
