George Atoya, who, according to the Daily Nation newspaper, wants to become a journalist is one of the freshest stories of young people going against the grain to secure secondary school admission in pursuit of a dream.
Atoya, 15, from Nandi, who scored 390 marks in the 2019 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) convinced a motor-cycle taxi operator to take him to Kakamega School, more than 70km from his home.
Two years ago, Grace Akinyi, a Nambale girl who scored 392 marks also walked 40 kilometres from her home to Butete Girls, fearing she would not become a lawyer without getting someone to pay her school fees.
Last year’s KCPE candidate Levis Otieno Rabah from Homabay, who also scored 390 marks, showed up at Kanga High School in Migori with two bars of soap in his metallic box. He got sponsors after the media highlighted his case.
Apart from the hungry young people, some parents have threatened to sell their body parts like kidney to get school fees to educate their kin.
Such cases of desperation and determination dot newspapers and are aired many times on radio and TV during Form One admissions season yearly. They will continue.
But worse, the unhighlighted cases run into hundreds, while, unfortunately, some threaten to or take their young lives when family poverty, poor planning or disagreement bars them from furthering education or takes them to ”inferior” schools.
Death, dear young people, is not the solution and should never be an option. When you have gone against the grain and defeated the odds at home to post good results, nothing can bar you from a dream, even though it may delay.
Instead of death by suicide, look for Education Cabinet Secretary’s phone number and insist on joining your dream school. Or jump onto the next bus and camp at Jogoo House B, the headquarters of Education Ministry. Demanding to see the President is also an option. But not death.
Now, from the bravest attempts of arriving in dream schools barefoot, without school fees and other requirements, and doing so at dawn, how come after graduation the most determined end up looting the economy and doing shoddy work at the expense of the poor taxpayer?
Although the young people joining Form One may not know about looting or corruption, they know how to set goals through their ‘When I grow Up’ songs. It’s the goals that set you apart as a special breed.
Many of the learners aim to achieve goals and ”support MY (emphasis the writer’s) family”. But we hope by the time you graduate with a university degree, you shall have known that great people have families beyond where they were born. Beyond mum and dad. It’s the entire globe, explaining how people end up working for agencies like the United Nations and the World Bank.
Indeed, even in your own country, true excellence demands serving everyone, irrespective of tribe, region, religion, or orientation.
It’s, therefore, worrying when school stars, the committed, the thirsty for education hardly consider making their country or the globe more livable. To leave it better than they found it after birth and after graduating with a coveted neurosurgeon or journalism degree, like Master Atoya of Kakamega School says.
Driving big cars, getting big jobs, and supporting your mum and dad are not in dispute, however there is a need to realise that when your company, which you head as chief executive or chairman, pollutes and mistreats workers, the world chokes.
Smart people, who, as early as after sitting KCPE, saw the world come together to support through school fees crowdfunding ought to know that social gains are superior to personal glory.
Young people, whether your school fees is paid by your kin or the public, remember to use education in delivering dignity, not amassing wealth through narrow goals.
