Former Education Principal Secretary Karega Mutahi is dead.
He served as PS during the late President Mwai Kibaki's administration.
Former Kenyatta University Vice Chancellor Olive Mugenda mourned the late scholar as a pragmatic leader who got work done
She said that when the construction of the Kenyatta University Hospital was almost complete and operationalization plans were underway, Prof. Mutahi graciously accepted to take up the role of consultant in the operationalization committee.
"That critical Karega report contributed immensely to what we used as a basis for running the hospital when I was appointed the Chair of the Hospital Board,'' Mugenda said.
"As PS MoE, Prof supported the Vice Chancellors during my time at VC-KU and his support and hard work contributed to our ability to post good performance and transform KU the way we did.
His contribution to the education sector and KUTRRH in that critical operationalization committee will find its place in the book pages when the story is written.''
Mutahi was one of a kind because despite not going to high school, he went on to hold top government jobs.
The former PS was born into a poor family, struggled with his education, but never gave up.
"I never went to any high school. In fact, in primary school, I had to repeat a class in primary," Mutahi once confessed in an interview with the Nation.
He went on to reveal that he sat for the Certificate of Primary Education in 1963, scoring an A in English, a B in Mathematics, and a D in the general paper.
The scholar secured employment after finishing his elementary studies, as an untrained teacher at Kiru Primary School in Murang'a.
This paved the way for him to join Kigari Teachers Training College, which was offering basic teaching skills to class eight leavers.
Mutahi never enrolled in a secondary school, he only registered for exams at different levels.
At Kigari, Mutahi enrolled for the Kenya English Test, and later sat the Kenya Junior Secondary Examination (KJSE) which was sat for at Form Two level.
At that moment, he was teaching in Thika.
He passed his KJSE and enrolled for O-level exams in 1967, scoring a Second Division, then enrolled for A-level exams in 1968.
He later sat for the mature age entrance examination, then administered by the University of East Africa, and passed, allowing him to gain admission to the University of Nairobi in 1973.
At UoN, he studied for a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics and scaled higher, acquiring a Master of Arts in linguistics from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in linguistics from the University of Nairobi.
Other ministries that he served under include Agriculture, Livestock Development and Marketing, Office of the Vice President, and Planning and National Development.
He has 19 publications to his name and was also awarded the Order of the Chief of Burning Spear.
Mutahi served as the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Relations Technical Committee (IGTRC).
This is a body formed by an Act of Parliament to establish a framework for consultation and cooperation between the national and county governments.