Kathigiri Public Day and Boarding Primary School in South Imenti, Meru county, has for six consecutive years been ranked the best public boarding school in the country in national examinations.
In last year’s KCPE, its top student, Lennox Kimathi Kiranki, scored 446 marks.
According to Kimathi’s father, Salesio Gituma, who is a private medical practitioner and businessman from Amugaa in Tigania East, Lennox is very obedient and is passionate about everything he does.
“He promises and achieves what he wants. He aimed for 453 marks and was optimistic he would get this result. He said attaining 435 would be a failure. He is afraid of doing something wrong and he is always apologetic when he does something wrong. He is also God-fearing. In fact leads in his church where he is known as junior pastor,” said the proud father.
Lennox said he is excited about his achievement. “Discipline is the key to success. I maximised on my strengths. Life is what you want it to be, follow it your own way and style and never lose hope. I would like to be a renown neurosurgeon,” he said.
Kathigiri Boarding had a mean score of 409 and according to the head teacher Ragwa Micheni, 40 candidates scored 400 marks and above in the class of 57 pupils.
The second best candidate, Brian Kimathi, scored 440 marks and he was followed by Allan Ngugi (436) and Kevin Munene (435). The poorest performer scored 371 marks.
Micheni said hard work, determination, syllabus coverage in time and stakeholder involvement was the key to their splendid performance.
“There is no shortcut in achieving good results in KCPE. Good teaching practices and encouraging the pupils to work hard makes the attainment of good grades easy,” said Micheni.
Micheni, who has been the school’s principal for 12 years, says the least mean score they have posted is 387. “In 2014, we had a mean score of 395 and this we improved to 409 marks.”
The school is under PCEA sponsorship and according to Micheni, the determination, high self esteem and sound discipline of the pupils contributed to their success.
“The school is child-friendly and pupils operate as if they are at home because we give them a lot of encouragement and support. We make them feel at home,” said Micheni.
He said most of their alumni are pursuing medicine and engineering courses in public universities. “They got straight As in KCSE.”
The school has a population of 310 pupils. “We focus on quality teaching and when we admit new pupils through interviews from class four to five. We only admit 70 pupils per year,” Micheni said.
“We want to maintain quality teaching and retain our top position. We are happy for the support that has made us the top public boarding school in the last six years,” he said.
Micheni, who was once an inspector of schools and the best mathematics teacher in Meru region, says their aim to to help produce more professionals needed by the country to achieve Vision 2030.