A’s run in our family

The “A gene” seems to run in a family where sisters , who sat for their Kenya Certificate Secondary Education (KCSE) exams nine years apart, both attained clean As.

Naomi Maranga, 17, on Friday featured on the front pages of the Nation as one of the best-performing girls in the country, with 82 points, repeating a feat her elder sister Emily Kerubo managed in the 2007 KCSE results. Emily scored 84 points, emerging the best girl in the Rift Valley region.

CALL HER DR KERUBO

Emily, 25, went on to study medicine at the University of Nairobi and is today a medical officer at The Nairobi Hospital.

Naomi and Emily are the third- and fourth-born children in a family of four girls, all of whom scored either an A-minus or a plain A in their KSCE results.

Naomi, the last-born, closes the story of KCSE success in the household of Prof Elias King’oina Maranga, a lecturer at Egerton University, and their mother, who died in 2011 after a long career as a teacher at the Ngala School for the Deaf.

Their elder sisters, aged 31 and 28, both scored an A-minus and are engineers

Speaking with the Nation yesterday, Naomi and Emily said it was because of God’s providence that the Marangas have been receiving good results.

“I attribute it to God and our parents for providing the right environment for us,” said Naomi, who sat her KCSE exam at Kenya High School, adding that their parents always encouraged them to be all-round learners.

All the girls in the Maranga family attended public schools in Nakuru, where the family resides, for their primary education.

This flies against the popular belief that top achievers come out only from private schools.

“We were taught to get what we want: to fit in, to be able to associate with people of all classes of life. I don’t think going to public schools was a disadvantage because we could study on our own. We were told, ‘This is what to do.’ We were taught the formula and left to do exercises on our own. We were not spoon-fed,” says Emily, who sat for her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) at Moi Primary School in Nakuru and KCSE at Nakuru High School.

After posting the impressive results, Naomi hopes to become a health worker like Emily.

“I’d like to do medicine and be an interventional cardiologist, because many people nowadays suffer from heart diseases and lifestyle diseases. I’d like to help save lives,” says Naomi, who also sat her KCPE at Nakuru’s Moi Primary School.

CULTURE OF HARD WORK

Reacting to Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i’s praise of her former school for being consistent in its KCSE performance, Naomi said there is a culture of hard work there.

“At the Kenya High School, we have a reading culture that is inculcated in us straight from the day you step into the school. We are taught that in school we have core values — hard work, integrity, teamwork,” she says.