Guide Testing: Why I don't like Standardized Testing for Safari Guides

Guide Testing

Why I don’t like Standardized Testing for Safari Guides

I have never been a big fan of standardized tests. Learning is such a highly nuanced or individual effort and quantifying it within a single test always seemed ineffectual. Within the ‘safari industry’ (I hate that this term even exists) there are always efforts to rank guides and this depends, presumably on what they know about African wildlife and nature. Even more worrying, the testing trend has led to governments requiring guide training in order to license guides/drivers within their national parks. Some agents too have begun to refer to these test rankings as if they are the only standard of excellence.

The tests usually cover animal behavior or biology but they might also might cover plants, culture and other odd items (what is in the Kenya Wildlife Service’s logo? is an example question on the Kenya Professional Safari Guide Association website - yawn). This is precisely where these tests get into trouble. How broad shall we go? What is necessary to know and what is not? What exactly is a safari guide anyway?

Is a windsurfing guide on the Kenyan coast a safari guide? Should he or she need to know the gestation period of a Hyrax? Is a bird-watching guide in Kakamega expected to know about the cultural history of the Swahili people in order to take a tour birdwatching in Nakuru National Park? Where are all these lines drawn and by whom?

The tests that the Kenya Professional Guides Association started with were set up with the best of intentions; to discourage fly-by-night operators who would give Kenyan visitors a bad time by operating unethically. It is a good cause to pursue and I have only respect for all the guides who have attained all the different levels of achievement. Just the same, I do think that the tests are naturally filled with all sorts of bias and are barriers that prevent some excellent people from participating. Furthermore, when I visit the big Kenyan parks and reserves I can’t say that I see any reduction in what i think of as fly-by-night operators.

I work with many excellent Laikipia Masai guides and trackers and they have mentored me for many years as they continue to teach me more about Laikipia’s ecology. I have a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Biology and I worked as a research biologist for ten years with endangered species but I have learned more from these men than from any course, job or degree. The sad thing is that none of these excellent teachers would ever pass a formal guiding exam like those offered by the KPSGA.

Safari guiding is like fishing. It is more instinctual than academic. Think of the best fisherman you know. Would they do the best on a fishing exam?

One great Masai guide I know went to Nairobi years back to complete his Bronze level test. I saw him after and he was glum. He had failed and when I asked him to remember a question he got wrong he mentioned this one; How Many International Airports does Nairobi have? He said one because he only knew of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The correct answer was two because our domestic airport, Wilson also flies to Arusha or Dar es Salam, and so, it too is international. Besides being infuriated, I felt crushed for this young man who at great personal expense had come all the way to Nairobi to fail a trick question. A trick question that if answered correctly, in no way would make him a better guide or host.

As a guide myself I have a specific interest in birds, insects and other small things. Most of the people I take on safari though are less interested in every detail of those animals and so I adjust my conversation to cater to what I imagine their own interests are. Exciting or funny safari stories are always a winner; the time the Leopard jumped on a sleeping camel’s back sending the entire crew into chaos; the time a confused hippo tried to walk through our dinner tent; etc, etc.

Among my friends are some of the most successful guides in the country. Most, if not all are incredibly great story tellers and while their knowledge of nature is also profound their popularity sometimes has less to do with their natural history knowledge and more about their great humor, company and hosting. How do you test for that?

Guiding tests and generic guide knowledge often times stress anything numerical, stuff you can check up on, test or look up in a field guide. Gestation periods are very popular for this reason but like weight indicate almost nothing about the animal itself. Who cares what the Hyrax’s gestation period is? More interesting questions to answer might be; Why is this group of animals not as species rich as they used to be? When did their common ancestor break from Elephants or Dugongs?

I’m a big believer in the free market and I think we should allow all different kinds of guides and tour leaders to find their own specific niches or specialities without restricting who can and can not operate. If guides can find (and better yet retain) guests who want to come on safari then what right does an association, course or test have to say that they are unqualified? Guides who take visitors to see Barack Obama’s father’s home are going to equip themselves with an utterly different knowledge base than a photographic safari guide. Why shouldn’t they also be able to enter a national park with their guests? The same will be true for rock climbing guides, mountain-bike guides, kite-surfing guides, cultural guides and on and on and on.

Many of the guides that can complete the guide testing are those people with a decent education or maybe just a passing grade in English. By limiting guiding to only those that can pass formal, standardized tests we are limiting our guiding to a generic group of individuals and ruling out many with natural born bush savy.

With all this said, I love education and especially courses on specialized natural history subjects. If and when these courses come up, we readily sign up. Our teams have taken gun courses, bird courses, geology courses, insect courses and plant courses and all were hugely popular especially those taught in English and Swahili. The first-aid courses have probably been the most rewarding for our guides since the knowledge and skills can be also so helpful at home. And it is the first-aid knowledge that you realize should be universally required by all operators regardless of tour specialty. This is actually what the parks might require. Let’s train all Kenyan hosts on how to keep guests alive rather than an absurd arms race to nowhere testing ourselves on arcane animal data like Hyrax gestation periods.

James Christian