Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Vol. 2, No. 1 | February 2014 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 47 P-ISSN 2350-7756 | E-ISSN 2350-8442 | www.apjmr.com The Centrality of Character and Integrity Education in Kenya’s Institutions of Higher Learning Dr. John Koskey Chang’ach jkchangach@yahoo.com Moi University, School of Education, Department of Educational Foundations KENYA ABSTRACT Education remains an important enterprise and asset by which any society models and determines its existence. It consists in a process of propagating desirable survival skills to succeeding generations. Through education, society sets and defines its basic survival needs. Thus, besides other components such as cognitive, creative and dialogical, the overriding significance of education can be summed up in its normative definitions. This is due to the fact that its impact is to be identified in the extent to which it affects and modifies one’s behavior in society. Based on this understanding, this paper focuses on the place of character and integrity education in institutions of learning. Its aim is to define, justify and affirm the importance of character as an irreplaceable component in holistic development of learners. Being a library-based study, its data is mainly obtained from internet sources and from discussions with educationists. A purely qualitative method was adopted so as to gain deeper understanding of the pertinent issues involved in character and integrity education. Thus, the principle methods used included critical analysis, speculative and dialectic methods of investigation. On the overall, the normative essence of education is critically discussed. Similarly, an exploration of various trends in character and integrity education has been made. Finally, the role of the teacher in character education of the learner is examined. The study concludes by making practical recommendations on possible ways and avenues through which character and integrity education can be enhanced in learning institutions. Keywords: Character, Integrity, Moral, Morality, Higher Education, Teacher and Learner I. INTRODUCTION Among the most important goals of education in Kenya are the following objectives which are paramount: the sustenance of the true convictions on which the human society is founded; the preparation of citizens for the public work which is a crucial factor for human survival. Hence education has the duty of creating and sustaining public good; the training and education of a humane capital, and the enhancement and promotion of corporate objectives; that is, socio- communication objectives. To achieve these objectives, educational institutions as centres of learning need to be knit together as humane institutions with a constant awareness of their noble responsibility to future generations. In their charge is placed the responsibility of insuring the societal posterity. Thus, these institutions must labour to bring forth holistic persons as endowed with sound character, quality and intelligence. On the contrary, schools and even the highest institutions of learning have generally reduced the learner to an object subject to market forces far away from his/her nature as a person. Seemingly, this is the general perspective in which the learner is viewed even by those in the teaching profession. Evidently, something seems to be going on seriously wrong with our educational institutions. There is a need therefore to go back and find out where the rains started beating us. This paper suggests that the worst rains that have hit our institutions of learning can best be defined in the context of our departure from lofty goals of education, namely the development of learners‟ for life, in other words learners who should become critical, intelligent and good choosers and moral actors in the world. Thus, while maintaining the vital traditional ideals, the purpose of education needs to be continuously redefined in the context of our contemporary consumerist situations. Let us for example reflect on what Daniel Webster said of education: If we work on marble, it will perish. If we work upon brass time will efface it. It we erect temples, they will crumble to dust. But if we work upon men‟s immortal minds, if we imbue them with high principles, with the just fear of God and love of their fellow men, we engrave on those tablets something that no time can efface and that will brighten and brighten to all eternity (Gries, 1996). For Webster, education is not principally about imparting knowledge in the sense of pouring facts into minds; rather it is all about imbuing minds with high principles, with a reverence for the sacred that institutes absolute things and concepts, and with a love for fellow men and women. On the contrary, as David Gries (1996) has further observed, education has been short-changed and instead has been used: To pour facts into people, to prepare them with a particular skill to make a living and to earn money. These are important, but more important are the high principles, the high values, the search for a meaning to their life, the fact that only through loving all men, no matter what their culture, can the world be at peace.