Promising dreams of a 16-year-old grade 10 student in Likoni, Mombasa, who performed exemplarily well in last year’s Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA) examination is almost shattered after he failed to join Senior Secondary due to lack of school fees.
Opiyo Shadrack Junior from Barabara ya Mchanga area scored 39 points out of 70 at Consolata Catholic Junior school but is yet to join Gede secondary school due to financial constraints
It’s now a few weeks to the end of first term, and all his friends had joined their new schools, but for him, it was almost a shattered dream.
This morning, Shadrack’s mother, Elizabeth Opiyo, a hawker at Mama Ngina water front, was making desperate attempts to raise school fees for her son.
Elizabeth said she had made a phone call to the school requesting her son’s admission window extended.
The single mother of four has emotionally appealed to the government, political leaders, wellwishers, and members of the public to help her take her son to school .
Shadrack’s results indicated social sciences as a pathway.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen had announced that there should be no justification for learners missing out on admission, citing the availability of bursaries and community resources.
Shadrack’s case now comes after the Ministry announced that 70 per cent of Grade 10 learners had already been traced during the last mop-up exercise aimed at ensuring full transition to senior school.
With the government confirming a 70 per cent success rate in the mop-up drive, the question remains over how isolated cases like Shadrack’s will be supported.