How poor student made it to top of KCSE chart : The Standard

Edwin Otieno Ouko, the student who emerged number three countrywide with a mean score of 87.363 in this year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examinations landed a high school scholarship by sheer luck. He missed joining Homa Bay High School where he got admission in 2015 due to lack of fees. The former pupil of Adega Primary School scored 401 marks in the 2014 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations. With a bedridden father and a mother in their desolate home at Kabondo, Edwin concluded that his education had come to an end. He was sliding into depression when relatives decided to raise funds and send him to school. Meanwhile, says Edwin, he kept praying for God to intervene.

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“We realised his missing school had started causing him a lot of stress,” recalls his aunt Mary Ogweno. After contributing some money, a relative told them to try seeking a scholarship from Light Academy in Nairobi since it was considering bright and needy students. The family used the money that was contributed to travel to Light Academy in Nairobi to try their luck. Light Academy headmaster Ismael Kucuk says the family visited but he could not immediately establish if the student was needy. Besides, the boy had not scored the 430 cutoff mark for scholarship. The headmaster said he was touched by Edwin’s story.

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“We visited his home and found that the family could not raise his fees,” said Mr Kucuk. Kucuk says the school resolved to break its rules on scholarship cutoff mark and admitted Otieno. With that, Edwin joined the school two months after other students had started classes. He says: “After the stressful moment l had gone through looking for fees, l promised not to joke with studies. I was going to work hard, pass and purse my dream of studying medicine. I am happy l lived my promise.”

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Edwin Otieno Ouko2018 KCSE results