In the year 1994, a promising young girl sat her KCPE examinations at Ngubereti Primary school in Mogotio, Baringo County. She managed to score 357 out of a possible 700 marks.
Phylis Jebet’s dream was to study Journalism and follow in the footsteps of her radio idols such as Elizabeth Obege and Gladys Erude, two of the greatest media personalities then.
Sadly, her parents could not afford to pay for her secondary school education.
”I was very heart-broken because I knew that without advancing in my education, I would never get a good life, earn a good salary and lift my parents out of poverty ’’ Jebet said sorrowfully.
She joined ‘Kamuganga High School’, a parody of the institution of marriage used derogatively for girls who married before their time.
The slang is derived from ‘magange’, Tugen for cooking stick. In Kamuganga High school therefore, girls use cooking sticks and not pens.
“I was very settled and comfortable in my marriage but my unfulfilled dream to strike big in education haunted me every day as I cooked,” she told Education News during this interview in her OlMarai Home in Ngubereti.
She reveals that her heart always longed to go back to school and her loving husband, who works with the interior Ministry, supported her desire.
In 2011, Sagasagik Secondary School was opening its doors to the first batch of students. The 34-year old mother of three joined the young girls in form one, 17 years after her KCPE, much to the amazement of many women and acquaintances.
Those who knew her sneered secretly, and others openly asked her to stay at home instead of wasting her husband’s money.
“It was already 17 years after I sat my KCPE, but I still passed the interview and gained admission to form one,’’ she said.
She late transferred to Reuben Cheruiyot Secondary School.
Joseph Kiptisia, now serving as the Education Director in Marigat Sub-county, gave her a warm reception and encouraged her to pursue her dream.
The transfer was crucial in helping her achieve a balance between going to school and at the same time attending to her duties as a housewife.
“Before leaving Sagasagik, I was symbolically gifted a tree to serve as a reminder as the first mother to join the school,’’ she narrates, hugging the towering tree swaying in the wind as if to welcome her embrace.
Then the day of reckoning came – the national examinations of 2014. She went on to score a D plain, and not one to give up, she enrolled for a certificate course at Egerton University, though not in her dream field.
“I had lost too much time and would no longer fit into the media industry, and therefore opted for book keeping. I love reading extensively and being around books,’’ she reveals.
Between 2015 and 2018, she had already acquired her certificate and a diploma, a distinction and a pass respectively.
Armed with the documents, she stepped out into job hunting. Soon reality would dawn on her that the world didn’t care.
The years that she spent in school seemed lost in the dimness of the past. Were those who taunted her right? She knew they were now talking behind her back.
“I am supposed to be a good example and a role model for all the women and girls in Ngubereti. What now do I tell the young girls? The ones who even saw me in the graduation gown?’’ she wonders.
Perhaps education is not about employment after all, she reassures herself.
By Jeremiah Chamakany
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