As its peers in the world of academia celebrate their good performance in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations and university entry grades through road shows and prize awards, Nyabite Mixed D.O.K Secondary School in Nyamache Sub-County, Kisii County, celebrates ‘environmentally’.
It has its university qualifiers feted through Prize awards during Education Day, where they also plant trees bearing their name tags within the school compound.
The School Principal, Kevys Awiti, discloses that every year the school environmentally celebrates its KCSE university entry qualifiers by planting trees as part of the efforts to celebrate the candidates and equally keep the school environment green for posterity.
“Our school has embraced a tradition of celebrating our KCSE university entry qualifiers through prize awards alongside having them plant a tree against their names to keep their memories alive among fellow students and by extension, conserve our environment,” narrates Awiti.
The Principal further discloses that if any visitor comes to the school seeking information on the number of students who qualified for university entry, they are taken round the compound to count the number of trees planted by each university entry qualifier in a particular year, without necessarily going to the school archives records.
The school faces various challenges, including truancy, student absenteeism, boy-girl relationships, drug and substance abuse, inadequate classrooms and science laboratories, and lack of water storage tanks.
However, Awiti expresses optimism that the school’s in-house nickname, The Vatican City, aims to maintain an upward performance trajectory.
Despite the school being located in a rural setting, it has attracted students from far and wide, courtesy of the Principal’s digital marketing strategy in which he uses his Facebook page to market the school locally and beyond.
“Despite its location in the rural setting, our school boasts of a national school image based on the composition of its students drawn from various parts of the country.
Interestingly, some of our students have secured admission here through their parents and relatives based in the USA due to our interaction through my Facebook page where I share information about our school and its activities,” states Awiti.
The Principal discloses that the school, registered by the Ministry of Education as a double-stream boarding school, has its streams categorized into boys and girls separately, though they are within one compound.
Awiti says the boys’ and girls’ streams are identified by two distinct colors, with boys identified by color, yellow, which symbolizes authority and girls are identified with white which symbolizes purity.
Another unique aspect of the school’s culture is the assembly point which is designed like a cross, translated as adding value to the learners’ future careers.
The Principal introduced another feature among the school’s KCSE candidates; each year’s KCSE class has an inspirational Bible verse and two Bible characters dedicated to both boys and girls sitting that year’s KCSE examinations based on the characters’ attributes according to the Bible history.
“As a school administration and community, we have our own and unique tradition of preparing and motivating our KCSE candidates each year.
It is important to note that each year, we have a special Bible verse and two Bible characters of either gender dedicated to our candidates as part of the wider scheme of inspiring and motivating them to face the examinations without fear,” states Awiti.
This unique inspirational culture of dedicating a Bible verse and two Bible characters to each year’s KCSE candidates is a brainchild of Awiti, who initiated it in 2019 when he took over the school’s leadership. That same year’s KCSE class was dedicated with a Bible verse from the Book of Numbers 14:28.
Girls candidates were named Glory and boys were named David.
Candidates of the 2020 class were inspired through a verse from the Book of Ephesians 3:20, with Solomon and Abigael (SOLABI) as Bible characters for boys and girls, respectively.
The 2021 KCSE candidates drew their inspiration from a verse in the Book of Genesis 18:14, with Sarah and Abraham (SARABRA) as Bible characters for that year’s girls and boys, respectively.
This year, 2022 class candidates have been dedicated with a verse from the Book of Philippians 4:13, with their Bible characters; Isaac for boys and Rebecca for girls (ISABECKY).
“Like all other great institutions, we have our dreams, ambitions and aspirations. To convert these into tangible realities, we have to work.
At Nyabite D.O.K Secondary, we are guided by our school spirit, ‘Hapa ni kazi tu’, which we always invoke,” clarifies Awiti.
History of the school
The school was started in January 1997 through community mobilization with Untrained teachers.
The school’s first Teachers Service Commission (TSC) founding Headteacher was the late Philip Oywecha.
The school is sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Kisii and has a student enrolment of 424, having risen from 51 students in January 2019 when the current Principal took over.
School Staffing
There are 20 TSC teachers, seven teachers enlisted by the BOM, led by their Chairperson Geoffrey Nyamori Achochi, and four are in teaching practice.
2021 KCSE results
The KCSE class of 2021 (SARAH-ABRAHAM) was the largest in the school’s history, presenting 95 candidates, making the school proud to have sixteen (16) students qualifying for direct university entry and posting a mean score of 5.147, up from the previous year’s 4.516.
The 2021 KCSE results breakdown was as follows: Out of the 94 candidates, 2 had B (Plain), 5 B- (Minus), 9 C+(Plus), 17 C (Plain), 28 C- (Minus), 24 D+(Plus) and 10 D (Plain).
The school’s current class (ISABECKY) is presenting 105 KCSE candidates targeting a mean score of 6.147, which has been strategically positioned at the school’s assembly point to remind the candidates of the task ahead.
Apart from the core curricular activities, the school boasts of having a strong Christian foundation that contributes to students’ spiritual nourishment and moral development.
According to the Principal, all school sessions start with a daily thanksgiving Mass and prayers to usher in a new day with God’s blessings.
After internal examinations, Awiti clarifies that the school conducts inter-classes extra-curricular competitions, talent shows, Holy Mass celebrations, and finally, closes the school for holidays.
However, Awiti, in his spirited school infrastructural development targets, in the past three years at the helm, has seen a raft of changes in terms of infrastructure, including construction to completion of 14-shutter latrines complete with urinals for students and four (4) modern water closet toilets for staff, courtesy of MOE/MIF 2021.
For enhanced security within and around the school, the Principal has managed to secure the institution through fencing with barbed wire, chain link wire and 3M corrugated iron sheets.
Mr. Awiti has also been able to renovate and furnish the Deputy Principal’s office, complete with a desktop computer and renovated the bathrooms in the female hostels.
Other achievements under the watch of the current Principal include the acquisition and installation of a bigger energy-saving jiko in the school kitchen and the MOE/MIF 2022 project –construction of a girls’ dormitory, which is underway.
He has also acquired three water tanks of 5000-liter capacity each for roof rainwater harvesting.
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