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

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.