Girl who beat the odds to emerge tops

When Mr Joseah Sigei, the principal of Ngiito Secondary School in Narok, denied Gladys Chelang’at a vacancy in form one four years ago, it did not occur to him that he was throwing away a jewel.

She had scored a paltry 191 marks and he rejected her because he was trying to put in place a decent cut off point which would ensure a reasonable mean score in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education.

“Her score had fallen far below the cut off point of 250 marks,” he says adding he doubted that a student who scored such low marks could improve significantly.

Luckily for him, he would accept her in the second term because she had been trekking to a day school several kilometres away from her home.

Prove herself

“Her KCPE score was the equivalent of a D. But when we accepted her in the second term we had seen her potential. By then her report form was reading that she was a C minus student,” says Mr Sigei adding she promised to work even harder and prove herself.

“Gladys improved gradually until she scored a B- in the district mocks. When the KCSE results were released last Tuesday the student had done us proud by being the only girl to score a B alongside another male student,” adds her former deputy principal, Mr Kipkoech Lang’at.

So what is her secret? Hard work and determination, she says shyly when we caught up with her at her home at Olerait village. This shyness, it seems, was not reflected when it came to seeking knowledge which she did with gusto and fearlessness.

“She was a peer teacher who liked teaching her fellow students Mathematics and Chemistry, this helped her practice a lot,” says the principal who doubled up as her Maths teacher. “She would bother me with questions even during preps,” he says. She scored a B+ in both subjects.

Planning her time well is her other secret. Her former games teacher, Mr Jacob Barusei, says Gladys, who played in the school football team, never took co-curricular activities as a less important endeavour.

“Unlike other students, she was punctual when it was time for games,’ says Mr Barusei. The 17-year-old third born in a family of four, whose parents paid fees by supplying milk to the school, says she expects to be admitted to a public university where she would pursue her dream of being an accountant.

“I always wanted to pursue a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and I thank God for the grade,” she told the Daily Nation. She was accompanied by her proud parents and villagers, who had not heard a student, let alone a female one, scoring a B in their locality.

She says her role model is Co-operative assistant minister Linah Jebii Kilimo who she praises for having beaten all odds to be elected an MP twice by a community which still puts roadblocks on the advancement of women.

On why she did not do very well in her KCPE, she says she had not understood the value of education then. Her former primary school teacher, Mr Michael Kirui, also reveals that domestic problems kept her out of school for days on end.

She now appeals to well wishers to come to her aid by paying her university fees as she still has arrears at her former school where she would have attempted the exam a second time. “My joy is mixed with sadness when I think of my brother’s fate,” she says.

Lack of fees

Glady’s elder brother scored a B too in KCSE at the same school five years ago. But he has not been able to join any tertiary institution because of lack of fees, having fallen short of being admitted to a public university where he would have accessed government loans.

Should Gladys’ dreams come true, she will join a small group of 10 students who qualified to join university this year in the expansive district which covers 10,000 square kilometres.

Education officials at the district pleaded her case saying she was a truly needy case. Says Mr J.N Njuguna, the Narok South Deputy District Education Officer: “Gladys has shown a good example to others that it is possible to do well by sheer hard work, especially at a time when girls’ performance has taken a nosedive.”

He adds that she is a beacon of hope in a district where female genital mutilation, early marriages and male chauvinism still dog the education of the girl child.