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The key to the evaluation of polytechnics lies in their capacity to create a new understanding of the opportunities in the rural areas for their students, and their ability to build upon this by providing sufficient training to exploit such opportunities, rather than the ability merely to provide skill training for wage employment as it is currently recognised

The need for training which complements the established formal school system in Kenya is indicated by the growth of the National Youth Service, youth centres and village polytechnics. This paper contends that the particular significance of the village polytechnic movement lies not simply in its reflection of the 'Harambee' spirit and its role in vocational training, but also in the fact that it may contain the first faint stirrings of a new educational ideology for Kenya. The purpose of the paper is to identify from the recent experience of polytechnics some of the significant features of this emerging ideology

"In the second half of the nineteenth century, middle-class liberal reformers attempted to ameliorate class tensions, prepare the working classes for citizenship, and improve British industry by reforming working-class secondary and adult education. One feature of their movement was the promotion of working-class travel in Europe and the Empire. In Education, Travel and the 'Civilisation' of the Victorian Working Classes, Michele Strong considers the experiences of working men and women, particularly artisans, but also young apprentices and clerks, who travelled abroad as participants in this reform movement, focusing particularly on the ways in which four overlapping institutions during the Victorian era drew workers into international travel: Thomas Cook and Son (a travel agency); The Working Men's Club and Institute Union (a national organization of clubs intended for rational recreation and cross-class interaction); the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce, and Manufacturers (a quasi-governmental organization); and the London Regent Street Polytechnic (a social and educational institute for young wage earners). Canvassing a broad array of working class and middle class voices culled from diaries, letters, autobiographies, and published reports, Strong argues that working-class educational travel became a battleground for competing notions of citizenship, class, gender, and national identities. "--