Yesterday I told you about our first day of school…today I’ll give you a little more detail to the story.
When I visited all the classes I thought everyone would be there since it was the first day of school, good assumption don’t you think? However I was told many of the students may not show up on Tuesday. Why you may ask? I have no answer for you there. I thought why not make Wednesday the first day then or enforce Tuesday as the first day of classes, but who am I to try and change the Kenyan educational system and ‘how it’s always been done’?
For the students who were there I hope I was able to encourage them, especially the Class 8 students who will be graduating in November and moving on to secondary school (high school). The Class 8 students take an exam at the end of the year (our school year goes Jan.-Dec., 3 months on 1 month off). This exams tests them on things they’ve learned over the past 8 years, but it isn’t a cumulative grading system. If they perform well on this one test regardless of how they performed during the year they will be invited to a higher level secondary school, but if they do not perform well they will either be invited to a lower level performing school, none at all or they may decide not to continue their education (for various reasons, one being no ability to pay the fees. Because unlike what you may have heard education in Kenya is not free). So this last exam is an important one, please pray for our Class 8 students.
The secondary students who stopped by picked up their pay slip/receipt showing their school fees had been paid for the term. As a reminder these are students who were sponsored (helped) by Nice View with their primary (elementary) school fees and are therefore being helped with their secondary school fees. They also gave us a needs list of items they could use in the term. That list includes items such as toilet paper (nope the school does not supply that), bathing soap, washing soap and then the usual school supplies like ink pens, pencils, notebooks etc. We’ll gather all the lists and see what we can purchase for them then have the items delivered to their school because once the student (if they are a boarder at the school) starts school they are not allowed to leave campus or have visitors except on designated days, but they can receive items through the school office.
I know this was a very brief explanation of part of the school system but I hope it clears up a few things anyway…If you have any questions please feel free to comment them and I’ll attempt to get them answered.