- Nauyapong Comprehensive School is undergoing major transformation after years of operating with mud-walled classrooms.
- Safaricom Foundation is constructing classrooms, dormitories, an ICT laboratory and other facilities at the school.
- The development is expected to serve learners from Kenyan and Ugandan pastoral communities living along the border.
As you move towards the Kenya-Uganda border at Nauyapong Comprehensive School, you will realise that new, modern and complex structures are being constructed within the school compound.
The structures are so beautiful that a passer-by would wish to have a closer look.
That is the new face of Nauyapong Comprehensive School, which all along had been having mud-walled classrooms.
“Nauyapong was initially a banditry-prone area due to cattle rustlers who were also fighting for the little available water and pasture in the area.
“The terrain of the area was complicated by poor road infrastructure and persistent drought, which made the school enrolment low,” said Mr Francis Lopeyok, the school’s Head of Institution (HOI).
Francis Lopeyok was himself a student at Nauyapong Comprehensive School. Years later, he became a teacher at the school, and currently he is the HOI.
“I therefore understand the great challenges facing the school and its surroundings,” said Mr Lopeyok.
In addition, he said that he wrote a proposal to the Safaricom Foundation seeking assistance for school development and, to his surprise, the proposal was positively considered.
He greatly thanked the Safaricom Foundation, which agreed to construct 16 classrooms, two dormitories for boys and girls that will accommodate 400 learners each, one ICT laboratory, a water installation and an administration block.
Mr Lopeyok said that after its completion, Nauyapong Comprehensive School will be a game changer in matters of education in the region, as the school will serve learners from the Turkana and Pokot communities in Kenya and Karamojong and Tepesi learners from neighbouring Uganda.
The various infrastructure projects being constructed in the school are 90 per cent complete, and it is expected that the official handover to the school will be early next year.
The peace Masses held every year at the borders of Turkana, Pokot and Uganda through the initiative of the Catholic Diocese of Kitale, Catholic Diocese of Lodwar and Catholic Diocese of Moroto have greatly boosted peace among the border pastoralists.
For instance, this year’s peace Mass was held at Nasal in Amakuriat, Pokot North, under the Catholic Diocese of Kitale, led by Bishop Henry Juma Odonya.
From learner to school head
“When I was a learner at Nauyapong Primary School, our classrooms were made of mud, and the urge to change the situation at the school when I became the HOI forced me to find ways of improving the school for the betterment of the current learners.
“It is my wish that any successful member of a community should find ways and means of improving the economic and social well-being of his community, for instance, through education,” said Lopeyok.
Francis Lopeyok said that Nauyapong Comprehensive School is a Catholic-sponsored school and learners have been instilled with positive moral values and are always ready to learn.
Initially, for many years, the school was a feeder school to Alale Primary School, but when its learners started sitting KCPE before the introduction of CBE, the school performed extremely well.
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As a game-changer school at the border of Kenya and Uganda, Nauyapong Comprehensive School is set to improve education standards among the Pokot, Turkana, Karamojong and Tepesi communities, which is expected to contribute to economic transformation and empowerment of the local pastoral communities.
By Martin Ruto
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