The school has over 500 students going from nursery
to grade 8. (Nursery would be the class before junior kindergarden in Canada).
With that many students, it was surprising to find out that each grade level
only has one class. That means that in one room there are over 70 grade 7
students with just one teacher. I can’t even imagine the work that faces the
teachers with that many students to educate, prep for and mark all their work.
The school day starts at 6 am with students responsible
for cleaning to school after walking up to 5km to get there. By 7am classwork
starts and continues till 5pm. At least one teacher stays at the school until
6:30pm so that students may finish their homework before they go home as many
of them don’t have lights. That amounts to a 12hr school day. To add to this,
the students go to school 7 days a week (only in the afternoon on Sundays).
Finally, most schools have a break in August, one in April and one in December.
This school however only takes the December break
We got to spend some time with the grade 8 students, or
the candidates. They are referred to by this term because they will be writing the
national exams in November before finishing elementary school. Three days of exams
determine in large part what high school the students will be able to attend.
Although parents in Kenya have the right to send their children to any school
they chose, financial considerations are often a deciding factor. If a student
does very well on the exams they can be offered a scholarship to allow them to
attend some of the better high school, even boarding school in Nairobi.
We also meet a number of different classes, heard a
number of songs created by the class to remember to material learned and
were honored to be asked to plant a tree on school grounds.
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