Long before Strathmore became a household name in African education, it was just a radical, impossible idea in a racially segregated colonial town. Now, for the first time, the man who lived through its wildest, most cinematic moments is sharing the story.
Few institutions in Kenya can tell their story through the eyes of the men who built them. Fewer still can trace that story to a dusty colonial Nairobi where racial segregation was law, spitting cobras occupied the land where classrooms would later stand and the idea of a multiracial school sounded almost impossible.
In a remarkable new video series, Professor David Sperling — one of the founding figures behind Strathmore School and later Strathmore University — reflects on the extraordinary journey that helped shape one of Kenya’s most influential educational institutions.
What unfolds is far more than institutional history.
It is the story of a young American arriving in colonial Kenya in 1960 with little more than conviction and curiosity. It is the story of long journeys across rough Kenyan roads in search of promising students; of encounters with future national leaders before the world knew their names; of difficult conversations about race, education, integrity and freedom.
Along the way, viewers are taken into moments that feel almost cinematic: a leopard reportedly roaming near the original campus grounds, a future Vice President discovered in a remote school, a boy harvesting fruit in a tree before eventually rising to the highest levels of government and the quiet determination of educators who believed Kenya deserved something different.
But beneath the anecdotes lies a deeper question that still resonates today: what kind of education truly forms leaders?
The series explores how Strathmore’s culture was shaped. It also offers a rare window into Kenya’s transformation after independence and the difficult decisions that helped define modern education in the country.
For alumni, students, parents and anyone interested in Kenya’s educational and social history, the series promises not just nostalgia, but perspective.
Click Here to Watch Part 1 of the Professor Sperling Interview Series