The teachers had been on strike for several weeks when I returned to Njoguini Primary School in Nanyuki, Kenya. So, it was surprising to find myself greeted by many children on this recent visit. Staffed by two administrators, and two teachers-in-training, school was in session on a half-day schedule. Approximately 75% of the students were in attendance.
Carrying letters and books for our sister school from Stephen Girard E.S. in Philadelphia and from well-wishers, I toured the school. In classroom after classroom, I entered to find rows of students sitting quietly at their desks reading or writing — with no classroom teacher in attendance. It was the 17th day of the strike. I could not imagine any school in North America where this would be possible.
“They are well disciplined,” said Head Teacher, Silvester Muriithi. I nodded and concluded that Muriithi has a gift for understatement.
As we walked to visit another classroom, a very young pre-k student came running up the dusty track to the school. Muriithi remarked that the young boy was tardy.
He stopped the child before he entered the classroom, placed his large, weather-beaten hand on the top of the boy’s head, and spoke to him very softly. The boy mumbled something in Swahili. Muriithi straightened and told me that the child will not be tardy again.
After the young boy trotted into the classroom, Muriithi explained that it is his strategy to empower children through positive touch. “When you put your hand on the child’s head, they know that they are forgiven. If you touch the child, some of your strength goes to him.” He continued, explaining how one can see it in couples holding hands, or if you share a positive touch with an enemy, it is difficult to sustain a fight.
This is just one of the ways that Muriithi has worked to build a caring community. The same level of care came through when he spoke of the striking teachers. “They have the children at heart, but they have to follow the union,” he said.
He explained that the teachers bring home about 14,000-15,000 KES per month. Some extra money is given for allowances, and some taxes come out. The result is roughly equivalent to 5 USD per day. “The cost of living in Kenya is so high now. Some of the teachers have children in secondary school and they have to pay,” he said sympathetically.
We continued our tour of the classrooms and encountered class after class where young students were happy to show off their knowledge and interact with visitors. In nearly every class that we visited, Muriithi inquired about how the students were progressing toward reaching their academic goals. In one room as we parted he said, “Remember to pray for your teachers tonight.”
On the blackboards in each room there was a chart with all of the students’ names, and a desired exam score, which was based on a 20 percent increase over the student’s marks from the previous year. Each student knew what they had to achieve, and when Muriithi asked who was going to make their goals, all of the students’ hands waived in the air.
Positive incentives were a part of the discipline and success program at Njoguini, he said. Muriithi plans to take every student that reaches his or her academic goal to Nairobi to visit one of the city’s universities. This trip will include a four-hour bus ride each way and a visit to a university in Kenya’s capital city.
Many of these students have never visited the local grocery store in Nanyuki, which is the nearest town. A trip to Nairobi is a powerful incentive — and expensive. Muriithi, like a lot of teachers around the world, does not let the lack of funding stop him. Instead, he must raise the money, and will pull money from his own pockets to reward the students who meet their goals.
The culture that Head Teacher Silvester Muriithi and Deputy Head Teacher Patrick Wairiuko have created at Njoguini is clearly one held together more by love than by budget.
My visit this year culminated in joyful singing and dancing; just as it has in the past. I was so tickled by the saucy little ABC song that the pre-k kids sang, and the way that the children spontaneously broke out in a strong rendition of Baby Beluga — which I had taught them last year on behalf of Stephen Girard’s principal Thomas Koger. They had not forgotten it.
The popularity of Njoguini is evident in their increasing enrollment numbers. The school, which housed 126 students last year, now has 190 students enrolled. But the increased enrollment does not bring with it an increase in budget.
Two factors have increased enrollments explained Muriithi and Wairiuko. First, the improved test scores last year cause the region to award Njoguini as the most improved primary school. Secondly, the school has instituted a lunch program, which means that when teachers return and school is in session for a full day, that the students will all receive in some cases their single meal of the day. “This is very important to families in this community,” Muriithi said. “There is food scarcity here.”
Despite the increase in students, the government has not increased the budget for the school. Ironically, as I made a gift of math books that had been collected back home. Wairiuko pulled out the school’s budget allowance from the government. The school received 8,231 KES, a little more than 94 USD, for books this term. Last term they received nothing.
The lunch program is supported by the school garden, which generates not only food, but also some profits from the sale of excess vegetables.
Still, Muriithi and Wairiuko and the other staff would be greatly assisted in improving the school if more funding were forthcoming. They would like the money to continue the construction of new classrooms, which have been supported by PA-MOJA, other donors, and the government.
At present the older students have classrooms with solid walls and floors, but the younger students do not. He estimated that the cost would be about $6,000,000 KES, or about 69,000 USD.
Back home in Philadelphia, the district has laid off 4,000 employees for lack of funding. The conditions for the upcoming school year are uncertain. It seems that our sister schools have many things in common.
Njoguini Primary and its example of a caring community provides a valuable model for how to make the best possible place for students when funding is so limited.
Dawn Kane
Wonderful article, very informative. ” We are more alike my friends, than we are unlike. “