Kenya Women Impress

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30782, 21 June 1965, Page 2

Kenya Women Impress

Experience gained in teaching at four secondary schools in Timaru had proved of value in Kenya, said Mrs P. H. Ruston yesterday.

Mrs Ruston, with her husband, returned to Timaru recently after teaching for six years at the Thogoto Training College, established by the Church of Scotland at 7000 feet and 15 miles from Nairobi. Mrs Ruston was impressed at the rate women were gaining in maturity and sophistication. The educated African women were taking a greater part in civic affairs, and

women welfare workers were being trained in nutrition and in the medical field generally, she said. At the college, Mrs Ruston was in charge of the English department. Training was based on simple but inexpensive teaching aids. Mrs Ruston also attended numerous seminars at which African women debated the merits of coeducational schools, and the custom of allowing a man to have several wives. Progress was such that European women were making way for African women, said Mrs Ruston.

Miss Margaret Kenyatta, daughter of President Jomo Kenyatta, was the first woman to be elected to a city council, and was the first

president of the National Council of Women in Nairobi. An African woman had been elected mayor in one district, another was superintendent of women’s prisons, and yet another had been appointed the first African matron of a hospital. The president of the Y.W.C.A. in Kenya was an African woman, and others held high office in the Red Cross Society and Girl Guide movement, said Mrs Ruston. Mr Ruston, who taught mathematics and science at the Timaru Technical College for 28 years, joined the staff of the Thogoto College in May, 1959. At the request of his students, he will write a book on teaching methods for African training colleges.