We are ready to tackle final exams, vow candidates trapped in IDP camps

Standard Eight pupils of Eldoret Showground primary school in class. Photo/JARED NYATAYA

They may not have had enough textbooks, and some may not have completed their syllabuses.

Yet others did not have teachers, but candidates for this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations who were affected by the post-election violence and are camping with their parents at the Eldoret showground, are confident of doing well.

The hardships they have been going through seem to have emboldened them and strengthened their will to succeed in life. They say the tragedy is their source of strength as they approach the exams.

Eldoret Showground is one such primary school where the morale and optimism are high.

“The enthusiasm our pupils have is almost infectious,” says Mr Stanley Wanyoike, the headteacher. “Although they started learning in late March, one would mistakenly say that they have had no problems.”

The headteacher’s only worry is that he is unable to trace 70 of his pupils, barely three weeks to the national exam. Most of them moved with their parents when the Operation Rudi Nyumbani resettlement started in May. “I hope they have been studying wherever they are, and that the Government will facilitate their transportation here for the examination.”

But for the school’s other 160 candidates, preparations for the all-important exam is in top gear; no time is wasted and every moment is used in revision and catching up with unfinished work.

“I hardly go out for games any more,” says Cedric Kang’ethe. “I use my games time and break to polish up on the areas I feel I am still weak at. My teachers tell me that I am burdening myself, but I know this is the price I have to pay for success.”

Cedric’s aim is to score at least 420 out of the possible 500 marks, and his life ambition is to be a mechanical engineer.

The students at the showground have to utilise all the available light during the day. While candidates elsewhere in the country do night and early morning studies, their colleagues at the showground do not enjoy such a facility. For them night starts at six in the evening when darkness falls. They retreat into their tents and wait for the next day’s light.

“Morning and evening studies would help me a lot,” says Susan Nyambura. “But my parents cannot afford paraffin for our lamp to enable me to study at night.”

Thus, at the break of dawn, she wakes up, takes a cold bath, has breakfast and leaves for the large tent that has been her school for the past nine months.

But the classroom roof is dripping with dew, making her shiver. She and her classmates know, however, that this is just a fleeting setback.

The tent becomes unbearable on a hot day, and this sometimes brings learning to a standstill.  And her prayer is that it does not become unbearably hot or cold on the exam days.

“If it becomes too hot or too cold I may not perform that well,” Susan says. “I pray to God to bring favourable weather conditions on those days and I will do my level best. I believe I’m prepared enough for the examination.”

Her only wish is that somebody will give her a clip-board in good time so that she may start practising early. In fact, none of her classmates has the board.

“It would have been good to have it now so that I can practise using it before the exam,” she says. “If I am given it on the first day, it may feel weird in my hands and cause me to fail.”
George Njuguna’s desire is to have a watch during the exam, and he fears that the all-important exam might find him without one. “My teachers tell me there will be a wall clock for us all,” says the 14-year-old whose dream is to be a doctor. “But I would be much comfortable having a watch of my own.”

Mr Wanyoike says he would have loved to use the free primary education funds to buy them their needs, but for the fact that the Ministry of Education never sent a cent to the school. “The Government never planned for these students in the first place,” he adds.

“That is why it (Government) had the temerity to order parents to leave the camp, yet it knew all along that there were pupils registered for the examination here.”

All the same, he is confident that donors will come forward to buy the pupils the boards and watches in good time, as they have done for the past nine months.

Class teacher John Thairu fears that the candidates may not have done enough preparedness evaluation. For the past 13 years he has been a teacher, he says, the recommended number of evaluation tests for a candidate has been 20. But they have done only nine.

“It will not be a big factor, though,” he points out. “We have prepared them psychologically and they understand the circumstances we have come through. Furthermore, I have noticed marked improvements in their performances in past examinations.”

Sponsors paid for some of the examinations, while the teachers contributed money for the rest.

But Mr Thairu is grateful that the pupils do not learn on empty stomachs as, he says, this would have been a recipe for disaster. A Good Samaritan has been feeding the pupils as the donors and the Government withdrew support in July. 

Food supply

The Government stopped supporting the camp in August when it declared it closed to force the families out. Charities such as Unicef and ActionAid also stopped supplying foodstuffs.

In fact, it is a miracle that the school still exists. About two weeks ago, the teachers as well as the pupils and their parents on several occasions battled police who attempted to close of it.

“They claimed that the camp had been closed and that the school was no longer recognised by the Ministry of Education,” says Mr Wanyoike.

“We wondered where we were going to take the candidates, yet the examination was fast approaching. So we decided to fight them.”

But the school community breathed a sigh of relief this week when they were reassured by Uasin Gishu district education officer that the school would not be closed after all, at least for the time being.

Another candidate, Mirriam Njeri, says her greatest fear is that questions will come from topics they have not covered.

Although the Government and some agencies donated textbooks, they came late. In some cases, the school lacked teachers to guide them through complex topics.

Most of the pupils lost their exercise books either to fires that razed their homes or to looters who descended on their houses and made off with valuables. “We could not do revision for the work we did in the previous classes, yet the examination will cover the work of all classes,” rues Njeri.

But she hopes to score 400 out of the maximum 500 marks and proceed to secondary school and eventually train as a doctor at the university.

Three kilometres from the camp is St Elizabeth Secondary School, which is a private institution. Here, 40 candidates are preparing for KCSE, which begins on Tuesday.

Touched by the conditions in which the candidates were preparing for the exam at the showground, a Good Samaritan took them to his institution free of charge.

“It was a huge sacrifice for the students, which we shall eternally be grateful for,” says Mr Fred Nyangau, the deputy principal. “The challenge is now for the candidates to show their appreciation by excelling in the examination.”

Although they face the same problems as their primary counterparts at the showground, they also hope to do well. “It could have been worse for us,” says student Sammy Mburu. “We have no reason now not to perform well since we have facilities to prepare us well for the examination.”

Given the circumstances, however, he has lowered his expectations. Before the violence broke out in January, he was aiming for a mean grade of B+. But he says he will now be content with a B-. “I have to be realistic about my chances,” he says.

“I know that I have not prepared myself for the examination the way I would have loved to.” His dream is to become a teacher.

Although the school has a modest laboratory, it is not equipped enough to handle the science subjects. For example, it does not have enough microscopes, pipettes, magnifying glasses, tripods and reagents. “This factor may affect their performance a bit because the experiments need a lot of practice,” says Mr Bernard Barongo, a physics teacher.  

The lab can accommodate only eight students at a time during an exam, and Mr Nyang’au fears that the shortage of facilities will affect the practicals and make them run into the night, a fact that might affect the students’ performance.

The school, too, is yet to receive funds from the Government despite appeals to the district education office.

It is relying wholly on well-wishers for virtually everything. For instance, one paid the exam registration fee for all the students.

Not interested

“I wonder what role the Government will play in assisting these students to excel in their examinations,” says Mr Nyang’au. “It seems totally not interested in them yet the conditions they are in are not of their own making.”

He regrets that a student who was taking French in her former school, has had no a teacher the whole year. She has been studying through borrowed textbooks and notes from friends.

“But her performance, according to the latest tests, is satisfactory. She is one of our top candidates and we trust that she will perform very well despite the challenges she faces.”

And this is his wish for all the other candidates. Though hopeful, they have no illusion about the enormity of the challenges they face.

And to beat the odds, they have come up with a novel reading strategy in their preparations. For example, when classes end at 4pm, they go into discussion groups up to 6.30pm.

“This way we ensure none of us is left behind,” says Elizabeth Muthoni. “We have to work as a team to achieve the best results during the examination.”