CORE PROGRAMS: OPENING SECONDARY SCHOOLS

When we first began working in the Loita Hills in 2019, there was only one affordable day school across the entire 650-square-mile region. Two boarding schools did exist, but their tuition was far beyond the means of most local families. The result was that dedicated students like Nashipae and Najma, pictured below, had little chance to continue their educations past 8th grade, no matter how promising they were and no matter how high they scored on the KCPE (Kenya’s secondary school entrance exam.)

To create the necessary infrastructure to ensure that secondary education was both affordable and locally available, we began partnering with rural communities to offer affordable secondary education to students by expanding existing primary schools one classroom each year. In 2020, we opened the first of these schools in the village of Morijo. In 2021, we opened a 2nd school in Olmesutie and in 2022, opened a third and fourth school in Olorte and Mausa. In 2023, we hope to open an additional school in the key central village of Entasekera and began supporting a sixth school in Olderkesi, a region just beyond the border of the Loita Hills . Once all these schools are opened, over 95% of students in the Loita Hills will live within 10KM of an affordable high school.

Late in 2021, the Kenyan government introduced a new policy that requires all new secondary schools to possess four classrooms and a laboratory before they can become officially registered and receive government support. While intended as an important quality improvement measure, the new policy significantly increases the economic barrier to funding new schools for rural communities. To ensure the successful completion of the four schools already started, we raised funds in the summer of 2022 to support and partially match communities own efforts to complete their schools while we work out how to shift our Secondary Schools Programs to respond to the new policy. Later that year, with the help of a partner foundation, we raised an additional $112,500 through our Final Mile capital campaign to ensure we can support Mausa, Olmesutie, Enairebuk, Entasekera and Morijo’s own efforts to finish building their high schools.

“Talent is universal but opportunity is not…. a cornerstone of justice is equal access.”

- Julie Hanna, Board Director, Kiva International

Nashipae was one of the most promising students in the Loita Hills approaching the end of primary school. She earned the highest girls' score on Kenya’s KCPE (National Secondary School Entrance Exam) across the entire Loita Hills in 2021, which resulted in invitations to attend several highly regarded boarding schools. Then, two misfortunes hit her already difficult life: she got pregnant, and the grandmother Nashipae had lived with since she was orphaned at an early age died, leaving Nashipae homeless. She moved in briefly with an aunt, but after another family member also become pregnant, the burden on the family became too great and her uncle kicked her out. Finally, a brother welcomed her and her baby back into the original family compound.

That family homestead happens to be near one of the villages in which we opened an affordable new day secondary school in 2020. Thanks to that new school, Nashipae will continue her education. Morijo Day Secondary School is walkable and affordable. Equally important, the quality of education Nashipae will receive there will be high-quality, thanks in part to several new pilot programs we introduced there last year.

NAJMA’S STORY