Kabianga High School chief principal Joash Aloo, who has recently interviewed for top national and county jobs, says he has reached his peak in the teaching profession and is ready for other exploits.
Dr Aloo is awaiting the results of Principal Secretary (PS) and county minister (CEC member) positions that he was assessed for within a span of days.
When he appeared before the Homa Bay County Assembly team to be interviewed for County Executive Committee (CEC) member as the nominee for the mouthful docket covering water, climate and related disciplines, he listed his achievements as a teacher of 25 years, including chief principal of Kabianga School in Kericho County.
“I have reached my self actualisation in teaching… I need to move elsewhere because that is diversity,” he respond to a litany of questions about his suitability for the docket in which he does not have a professional training.
Gladys Wanga, a former MP, is the governor of Homa Bay County.
As chief principal, the last grade in the teaching profession, since July 1, 2017, Dr Aloo said there was “no other grade to look for”.
An articulate man benefiting from his English and Literature (BEd) training at Kenyatta University, the nominee enumerated how he has revived fallen schools and turned around dwindling others, including Kabianga that he was posted to on June 3, 2015 having been “run down and had had mass indiscipline for 12 years”.
Two “large” dormitories had just been torched in the school when the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) sent him there from a slum school in Kisii, he told the team headed by County Assembly Speaker Julius Gaya.
Today, Dr Aloo, who is a church elder, said the school with 2,500 students is the second most sought-after in Kenya, has no pending bills and is run on a surplus, boasting a thriving enterprise that gives the national school Sh7 million income in a year.
According to the Ministry of Education, most Class 8 learners who sat KCPE examinations in March 2021 preferred Nanyuki High School and 156,003 candidates applied to go there against 480 slots.
Kabianga was second with 149,087 applications against 528 chances. Pangani Girls, Maseno School, and Nakuru High made the best five list in that order.
Others in the top-10 ranking were, respectively, Alliance Girls, Kapsabet Boys, Butere Girls, Mang’u High, and Moi Girls-Eldoret.
Under the government’s policy of 100 percent transition to secondary school, the institutions are bursting at the seams, leading to congestion that some learners have described as “military camps” where students fight to access water, watch over their uniforms after washing, and are packed in now tiny dormitories of three-decker, but rickety, beds.
Dr Aloo, 49, started his school principal journey at Bodi Secondary School in Kisumu County, an institution that was launched in 1989 but went under. He started off with 16 learners, but left in 2009 after eight years, when the population was at 384.
Holding a master’s and PhD degrees in Educational Management and Administration, Dr Aloo who said he had been teaching at various universities pro bono, was, however, at pains to explain how Chapter Six of the Constitution would sit judge him since his wife was the Acting Secretary of the Homa Bay Public Service Board.
The nominee said the wife was holding the position in an Acting capacity, but eventually said if push came to shove and one of the them was to give way, he would opt out.
It has been a good three years for the Kabianga teacher in terms of top-job interviews in quick succession. Apart from the PS position, Dr Aloo was interviewed for position of the TSC chairman, but failed to secure the lucrative position.
This good run, however, attracted a barb from the panelists who asked him to state how he would deal with the dilemma of securing both the CEC and PS positions.
He quickly used his oratory power and literary prowess to go over the hurdle with ease by quoting John Ruganda’s ‘The Burdens’, saying little ambition leads a man nowhere while too much of it breaks a soul.
