- The first school, the sixteen-year-old Bridge school in Mukuru Kwa Njenga slums recorded a mean score of 345 marks in the recently released KCPE.
- Kwamboka’s mother; Mary Kemunto describes her daughter as ‘book warm’; she even recalled asking her daughter to take some time off books.
Florence Kwamboka and her mother Mary Kemunto both wore gumboots when we found them near their shanty in Mukuru kwa Njenga slums in Nairobi's Embakasi area.
They were not heading to a farm but the head teacher's office at Bridge International School in the heart of the sprawling slums.
Kwamboka is the top student at the school with 401 marks in the KCPE exam results released by Education CS George Magoha on Monday.
The school is tucked in the neighbourhood of shanties that form several villages within the slum.
Here, it takes determination and focus to attend school every day.
It is that determination that pushed Kwamboka to the top.
She topped the 2021 class of 20 candidates who posted a mean score of 345.
Head teacher Ibrahim Aniatsi is happy. He said the next class will even do better. The school is growing.
“This is the fourth cohort of candidates we have had in this school and with the effort of my teachers, I believe we are heading in the right direction,”Aniatsi said.
When it rains, the school compound is flooded. There is no electricity. They depend on solar-powered panels.
The dream of the proprietors was to set up a low-cost private school in the slum to make education more accessible.
That decision is slowly bearing fruit thanks to the big dreams of the learners.
Parents pay Sh4,000 per term as school fees.
Kwamboka was always optimistic she would excel in the exam.
On the day of the release of the results, mother and daughter were all caught up in anxiety.
They asked neighbours to check the results on their behalf.
Kwamboka went to bed to read a book as she waited for the results.
“I told my mum to come and add another blanket if I scored 300 marks, if it was 400 then she should come screaming,” she said.
Mary Kemunto described her daughter as a bookworm.
“She reads all the time, she even covers herself with a blanket in the middle of the night with books,” Kemunto said.
The mother of two appreciated her daughter’s hard work which has finally borne fruit and no longer wishes that Kwamboka would play and not study.
“My family, in general, does not have a lot of learned people and even my firstborn daughter did not do so well but I think it’s because I was not so keen with her,” Kemunto said.
She is appealing to well wishers to sponsor her daughter's secondary education.
Kwamboka told the Star she draws inspiration from legendary architect Julie Moran. She wants to become an architect.
Her favourite subject is Mathematics and she also loves drawing.
Kwamboka has become her mother’s tutor back at home.
The knowledge she acquires in school is what she uses at home to educate her mother, especially in English and Mathematics.
“Teaching my mother what I have been taught or studied on my own also helps me, it’s a form of revision,” Kwamboka said.
Kemunto, proud of her daughter becoming the top candidate believes she has all it takes to become an architect.
“Whenever I see my daughter drawing and working out her mathematics I believe one day her dream will come true,” Kemunto said.
The top candidate aspires to join Alliance Girls where she believes she will get quality education.
(Edited by Tabnacha O)