By Andanje Wakhungu
Friends Kivaywa High was on the verge of collapsing until former Deputy Governor Prof. Philip Kutima and other political leaders intervened.
The school was adversely affected by the numerous cases of insecurity including theft of property and loss of lives, a situation that forced many parents to transfer their children to other schools.
The political leaders, accompanied with a multi-agency security team, visited the school to try and unravel the mystery behind the numerous insecurity incidences.
But, the concerted efforts of the political leaders and the arrival of a new principal Bernard Wamanga brought a new dawn to the institution.
Less than a year since he joined the school, the school has risen from grass to grace and is rejuvenating the hopes of the community and stakeholders at large.
He noted that when he joined the school, the relationship between the school and the community was so bad and was at the rock bottom and very volatile.
The community constantly accused the school’s management of failing to professionally manage the school.
“I joined at a time when no parent wanted to hear anything about the school. The picture painted in their minds was that principals were failures. I quickly assembled my team of teachers, the board and the support staff for a crucial meeting to try and find out the best way we could instill trust back in to the community, who are the major stakeholders of the school,” he said.
Wamanga noted that during the meeting, the community put across several key points for implementation.
“Slowly, we started seeing some rays of hope from parents and even the sponsor church,” he noted, adding that they worked on strengthening the morale of students through guidance and counseling sessions to ensure any form of indiscipline is handled strictly and professionally.
He revealed that lack of a perimeter wall made students to sneak in and out of school.
“We have gradually worked on that and have put in place mechanisms and measures that will see us improve our results in this year’s exams. We managed to attain a mean of 5.7 in 2021 KCSE and we’re aiming for 7.5 in this year’s exams,” he said.
The school now boasts of a student population of 1373 with a candidature of 270. It is a six stream school though form one is clocking seven streams. It is destined to become a ten stream institution in two years time considering the high admission trend.
“We’re expecting the student population to rise to 1800 when form ones join us next year. We have set aside three classrooms for JSS learners and we’re hopeful that through our partnership with the stakeholders, we will take the school to greater heights,” he explained.
He thanked the chaplaincy of the Quaker Church for standing firm with the school to ensure sanity is restored and for harmony is witnessed the teaching staff and the non-teaching staff.
He thanked the school management for standing firm with the school to ensure more programmes are put in place to put the school back on the academic map.
The school performs well in co-curriculum activities. In music festivals, the school got to the county level. It also won trophies in drama and badminton among other games.
The main problem the school experiences is teacher shortage. It has 30 TSC from the expected 70.
