Kenya's First President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was able to enroll and work in universities in London even without passing through secondary school.
Jeremy Murray-Brown in his 1973 bio of Kenyatta notes that he completed basic mission schooling from Thogoto in Kikuyu where he studied the carpentry, mathematics and Bible (but was later an agnostic despite his family being front-pew Catholics).
20 years after leaving Thogoto, Kenyatta successfully enrolled at the Fircroft Working Mens College for an English language course.
Canadian scholar Bruce Berman once wrote that on arriving in London after being sent by KCA official to seek audience with colonial masters, Kenyatta became acutely aware of his limited command of English, oral and written.
He would later write to readers of his Muigwithania newspaper that “... if you want us to become of consequence and to become the counsellors of our country, busy yourselves with EDUCATION. But do not think that the education I refer to is that which we are given a lick of; no, it is a methodical education to open up a man’s head.”
William McGregor Ross who was the Director of Public Works in the East Africa Protectorate assisted Kenyatta's admission to Woodbrook Quaker College in Birmingham, England in 1931.
McGregor also paid Kenyatta's tuition fees until he completed and graduated with a certificate in English composition.
Later Kenyatta's friend, George Padmore, the prominent Trinidadian pan-Africanist and journalist, arranged for him to go to Moscow to study at The University of the Toilers of the East which taught History, Foreign Languages, Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Party and Trade Union Organisation and Techniques of Propaganda & Agitation.
Mzee was however not satisfied with the institution. He complained bitterly about the poor food, bad accommodation, and low standard of English of the instructors.
He returned to London in 1934 to continue with his anti-colonialism agenda.
Prof Bronislaw Malinowski one of the world’s leading ethnographers at the time met Kenyatta later the same year and immediately a relationship sparked.
He helped Kenyatta enroll as a full-time post-graduate student in the Department of Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics without a first degree or even a secondary school diploma.
This raised Kenyatta's status not only among Kenyans but Africans as he too would now be able to engage with British colonialists as an equal.
After leaving university, Kenyatta became more actively involved in efforts to raise global awareness about the effects of colonialism and teamed up with figures such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
Despite helping elevate Kenyatta's status, Prof Malinowski didn't live to see the central role his student played in the anti-colonialist movement in Kenya and Africa at large.
From time to time, Kenyatta would also give lectures and help translate Kikuyu texts to English until the British authorities tried to cap his growing influence by replacing him with Eliud Mathu as a translator.
