NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 2 – Nairobi’s top student and the fourth best nationwide in last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education results scored the highest marks in the country during the 2005 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exams.
18-year-old Oduol Fredrick Constant who scored a mean score of 87.223 in the just released KCSE results said he wanted to pursue electrical engineering and that he hoped to get a scholarship to aid his career choice advancement.
Mr Oduol who comes from a humble background said he received the good news from his father as he walked within the city centre.
He asked this year’s candidates to put in extra effort in their studies.
“Don’t let pride inflate you because you are there at the top. You can tumble all the way to the bottom if you just waver a little bit; you have to be stable. Know that there are many things that can distract you,” he advised.
The second born in a family of five was received at Starehe Boys Center with jubilation moments later. He added that the exam was not as easy as he initially thought and that his former school mates did the best they could.
“It is not always expected that Starehe will be at the top. There are other schools that work out there; there are people who work hard and they are people like us… they have the same goals as we do and they want to be at the top. Generally compared to the KCSE papers I’ve seen in the past, this exam was a tough nut to crack,” he observed.
He also thanked God for his performance saying: “I can’t say I’m disappointed or I expected better than I did so I can say it is part of a plan; everything happens in accordance to God’s will this is the best for me. If you speak of the sky as the limit; may be this is my limit…it is the sky for me.”
Fredrick’s father James Oliaro a primary school teacher at Mathare North Primary also expressed excitement at his son’s performance saying he was anxious and concerned before the results were announced.
“I could not even turn on the radio because I did not know what I would hear but a friend of mine called me and gave me the good news. You know Fredrick started reading seriously for the exams in second term. Before that, he was just reading novels and I was very worried. I didn’t want him to get a bad grade. But now I am very proud of him and I thank God,” he said with excitement.
Meanwhile Starehe Boys Center Director Matthew Kithyaka said it was difficult to say why the school’s performance in 2009 declined with 15 of its students in the top 100 students’ national category compared to 24 in 2008.
“Last year we had fairly well disciplined boys and it is important to note that a student will be performing very well at the individual level but when you look at the cumulative level you may tend to think that we’ve gone up or down. So when our students perform well enough to join institutions of higher learning, then we are very happy,” he said adding that the school could do better.
“The performance that we have had I would say was good but we still have the skies as our limit. We still have an upward movement and so we are happy with the results and we must work towards improving.”
Vincent Macharia, a student at Starehe who will sit his KCSE this year congratulated his former school mates for their performance saying they had set a good pace. He was also reckons the 2009 KCSE exams was not easy.
“The way I saw those papers…it was kind of difficult. Maybe it is not what they were expecting; they thought that it would just be a simple a walk over. Maybe they didn’t take it with as much seriousness as they should have,” he said.
He also supported the new ranking system which focused on individual performance rather than school performance: “At the end of the day, somebody leaves Starehe or any other school they are in as an individual so as much your school may become number four, and you got what you wanted from the school, individual ranking to me is more important.”
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