Thome Boys Secondary School is a fairly new secondary school which started 4 years ago in the community surrounding the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. It is going to have its first class complete and sit for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education by the end of the year 2014.
It currently has 100 students who are only boys as it is a boys’ school, 8 teachers, 5 of them being government employees by Teachers Service Commission and 3 employed by Parent Teachers Association. Five of the teachers are male while 3 are female. The school has 4 classes, 4 student latrines, 1 teacher latrine shared among both the male and the female teachers, 1 cow shade for their cows (a PA-MOJA project in conjunction with the Ol Pejeta Conservancy), a temporary kitchen and a boys’ dormitory which was initially a class and later transformed into a dormitory.
The school has had a number of achievements since it was started. For example, it has been able to get electricity and has also been able to get water mainly pumped from Tigithi river 1 kilometre away from school to curb water problems. It also has 7 water storage tanks donated by Waso project, a green house donated by Syngenta which is helping them grow a variety of crops for the school. It also has a twin lab mainly built by the government through the provision of Community Development Funds.
Above all, PA-MOJA has started a Biogas Project for the school through purchasing of cows for them and constructing a cowdung storage tank for facilitating of the gas.
Students have been taught about the importance of having school clubs. This way they have been able to develop various clubs like the Wildlife club which teaches and encourages them how to maintain and rear animals like rabbits, geese and chickens. This club has helped even in the school development since rabbits are sometimes slaughtered for the students’ consumption.
The chicken also hatch eggs which the boys also consume and geese help with the school security. They also have a Young Farmers Club which connects the students with agricultural shows and exhibitions which are normally held country wide and through this they are able to learn more about agriculture.
Thome Boys also have an Environmental Club in their school which mainly teaches them about conservation of the environment and wildlife. There is also a Debate club which is a club that helps students improve their languages, which are English and Kiswahili. The Debate club also enhances social interaction among students and they learn much from the topics introduced in the debate sessions.
