- Head teacher Jane Njeri said the donations will inspire not only the pupils joining Form 1, but also the continuing learners to aim for university studies.
- General Kago Primary had 86 candidates sitting the national exam last year and 30 of them attained more than 300 marks.
Image: JOHN KAMAU
More than 50 learners from General Kago Primary set to join Form 1 have been gifted with luggage boxes as they join various secondary schools.
The boxes will help them carry clothes, books and other personal effects.
The beneficiaries, most of them from Kiandutu slums in Thika town who got more than 300 marks in the 2022 KCPE exam, could not hide their joy after they were presented with the boxes by Mount Kenya University students and staff.
Head teacher Jane Njeri said the donations will inspire not only the pupils joining Form 1, but also the continuing learners to aim for university studies.
General Kago Primary had 86 candidates sitting the national exam last year and 30 of them attained more than 300 marks.
“Among these [candidates], many need financial support,” Njeri said.
Although some of the needy pupils come from the slums in Thika have benefited from well-wishers, there are many more in need of help.
“They need school uniforms, text books, stationery and other types of support,” the head teacher said.
Njeri said many children are not feeding well at home and it is only well-wishers who have been boosting the school’s feeding programme to keep the desperate pupils in class.
Purity Wangithi Mwangi, a parent, thanked the entire MKU fraternity for their kind gesture and prayed that the partnership will continue going forward.
“We also thank God for touching the hearts of our neighbours and wish many others like them will come to support our children. We are relieved with the kind gesture because the boxes are expensive and hardly affordable. We will now focus our attention on footing other expenses to facilitate their children to join secondary school,” she said.
Wangithi said preparing the pupils to join Form 1 has been costly to parents from the slums, adding that some requirements may make it difficult for their children to get admitted.
"Our hope now is on the NG-CDF [National Government Constituencies Development Fund] to give our children bursaries to go to school,” she said.
Peter Wanderi, the principal corporate affairs at Mount Kenya University, said education is the key to the future of primary school learners.
“These pupils have done well in KCPE. We gave them the presents to let them know that they have caring neighbours. We are happy when we see them celebrating. We might not walk with each and every pupil, but we want to follow the beneficiaries in their secondary schools,” he said.
Wanderi said the country and the education sector have now returned to normalcy after the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-22.
“We appreciate efforts by the whole country - government, corporate entities, churches and individuals of good will - to ensure that all the pupils who finished Standard 8 last year transit to secondary school,” he said.
“It has been our dream to reduce education inequalities among students to ensure children go to school."
(edited by Amol Awuor)