This paper argues a case for the preparation of reading materials in Kiswahili and other African languages in order to enhance adult education in Kenya. Adult education clientele are defined as those aged over 15 who (a) were either never enrolled in primary schools or dropped out before completing and (b) `graduated` and currently participate in community extension services. Cognisance of mothertongues as the best languages to begin basic literacy is taken. However, since the literacy so acquired should be useful to the individual at both local and national levels, one needs Kiswahili for wider communication. Therefore, reading materials, especially for post literacy and adult literacy teacher training should be in Kiswahili. This will not only guard against relapsing to illiteracy and misinformation but will also alleviate the scarcity of reading materials in the face of hard economic times in Kenya.

In the first quarter of the 20th century, the Czech teacher J. St. Kubín collected far more than 1000 folktales of Czech countrymen, especially in the Giant Mountains. Kubín comprehended the orally passed on folktale as the genuine cultural tradition of ‘unsophisticated’ people. The narrator is the bearer of this tradition, which Kubín defends as autonomous and native against modernism and civic society. Different from Václav Tille, who claimed the literary written origin of folktales, Kubín emphasizes the oral tradition of the folktales. His rich collection shows the internationality of the types of the folktale.