Life at Ereri Primary School

 

Ereri Primary school is located amongst the pastoral commuities in the northern part of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. It has a capacity of 304 pupils, 157 boys and 147 girls. It also has 10 teachers, 4 employed by the Teachers Service Commission and 6 by the Parent Teachers Association and 2 non teaching staff, one cook and a night watchman.

It also has children in Early Childhood Development classes including 31 boys and 35 girls. Ereri Primary School is one of the few primary schools providing basic education to the children at Ereri  and to the surrounding villages. Most of the communities in the area are poor and practice subsistence pastoralism. As in most other Kenyan schools there are environmental, music, Scouts and debating clubs to keep the children busy in their free time.

The students walk very long distances to school through forests where they brave frequent encounters with wildlife. Due to a lack of water, there are many days at school where there is no food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

classes 1-7 

                   

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pupils during their schedules in school, P.E lessons and in class lessons.

Fencing is  one of the major challenges of the school to keep cows from eating young saplings. The parents are now in the process of contributing funds to construct it. Another major challenge is the school toilets; the school has 2 toilets for girls and 2 for boys. The girls’ toilets are already full and they are now using the boys’ toilets until  the parents are able to contribute for the drainage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The contractor faces water problems during construction and must use a tractor to fetch water from the river 15 kilometres away from school. The men carry a tank for storing the water for construction.

This is the filled up girls toilet awaiting to be drained through funding by parents contribution.

 

 

 

 

 

The day pupils were asked to carry water to school for preparation of their meals but due to very long distances, they were not able to carry more than 5 litres,  so there was not enough water for their meal preparation. The next challenge is to repair one of the classroom floors.