Brookside Mathlete transforming Maths’ performance in schools

Most students would walk into the examination room fatigued and this affected their performance in the subject 

What started as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has today transformed the performance by students in Mathematics subject in Kenya.

In 2003 a team from Brookside Dairy Limited –a leading dairy product company under the leadership Mr Peter Wasonga, the Marketing Manager conceived an idea of combining education, sports and health in order to develop an all-rounder student.

 “Actually the Brookside Mathlete Contest was born in Maseno school during the Secondary School games.Paul Otula had just been appointed the new Principal of Maseno,he joined the school from Mangu High where they held Maths contest for the last 22 years.

After careful deliberation we agreed to launch a mathematics contest for secondary schools, Maseno School was picked as the venue for the first contest,” says Mr. Wasonga. According to Mr Wasonga the first contest attracted schools as far as western and Rift Valley counties.

 “The reception was so welcoming that in 2004 Kabarak School was picked as the host and the number participants also went up tremendously, more schools were sending applications for them to join the competition.

A year later since we had done Western and Rift Valley regions, we decided that we needed to shift to Central Kenya, Mangu High School agreed to host the competition where surrounding schools participated heavily,” adds Mr Wasonga.

However, during the early stages of the competition the biggest challenge that faced most competing schools were logistic issue. “You will find that schools will travel as a far as Mombasa to hosting venue, and still wake up for the contest at 8:00 A.M the next day.

Most of the students would walk into the examination room with fatigue and this affected their performance in the subject,” Mr. Wasonga comments. Devolution created a future expansion platform when Kenya enacted a new constitution that gave birth to a new system of governance, where counties were created, the dairy firm decided to roll out the contest in counties in partnership with Strathmore University.

 There are two categories, the junior and the senior where the junior Category comprises of a team of 10 students from form 1 and 2, whereas the senior team has 10 students from form 3 and form 4.

“Between 2016 to 2017 we have been able to maintain the contest in 15 counties and this has driven by the good performance in the subject by the participating schools during the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education at the national level.The mean grade of most schools that take part in this contest has gone up tremendously for instance Kakamega High school,”Mr Wasonga insists.

Mr Wasonga also acknowledges that the contest has created cultural integration among Kenyans. “The Mathlete has created an outing for students to learn about various cultures by having to travel to various parts of the country to take part in the competition, this help students to understand their country better.I think this has also help in boosting the morale of students taking part in the contest,”emphasizes Mr Wasonga.

Through the competition schools now have formed internal Mathematic competition where they compete among themselves and this helps them pick the best who will represent the school at the grand finale at Strathmore University.

Annually over 50,000 secondary students have competed in the Brookside Mathlete contest. A good number of students have benefited for the last three years,a tune of 188 scholarships that have been awarded to both school fees and diploma scholarships and university awards “We have seen the impact of the competition has created among students and the improvement on the performance of the subjects among students is a key indication that we are on the right path.

 It’s for this reason we are planning to roll out the contest in 10 more counties bringing the total to 25 counties come next year,” notes Mr Wasonga. This years’ winners will have a chance to pursue Engineering and Communication related courses at the Strathmore University.

 

This was reached upon deliberation by stakeholders and the need for students to have a variety of courses they can pick from as opposed to the traditional Business related courses, “confirms Mr Wasonga.

According to Strathmore University Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research and Innovation, Prof Izael Da Silva,the Brookside’s movement would go a long way in improving performance in the subject which has been done poorly in the past.  

“The private sector should have the drive to promote and invest more in education, especially Mathematics, since the good performance is critical in uplifting the country’s GDP.

We must debunk the myth that Maths is a difficult subject among our students if we want to have experts who can analyze and offer correct economic predictions that can help grow our economy,” says Prof Da Silva. Mr Wasonga believes that any student is able to win the Mathlete grand finale reward despite not coming from a National school.

“We have Khalud Mahmood from Memon Academy who was the top girl last year yet her school is not under the national schools category, “concludes Mr Wasonga. He urges other corporates to come on board and partner with Brookside to promote the contest.