The Department of Educational Foundations was created in 1988 when the Faculty of Education was re-introduced in the University of Nairobi. The department is one of the three that currently form the Faculty of Education and which participate in offering all education degree programmes in the University of Nairobi.
In the 1998/1999 academic year, the department launched self sponsored programmes (commonly referred to as Module 2) at the undergraduate level under the B.Ed. (Arts) programme. In the year 2000, it started offering its units to the Bachelor of Education B.Ed. (Science) degree students. In the academic years 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 respectively the department launched its Master of Education in Educational Foundations and Postgraduate Diploma in Education.