Chavakali High’s secret of success

Chavakali students during a break. [Photo: Samuel Ochieng/Standard]

By Samuel Ochieng

Vihiga, Kenya: No one had expected Chavakali High to outshine academic giants in last year’s Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams. Even the students were surprised when the Education Cabinet Secretary Prof Jacob Kaimenyi announced the top ten best schools nationally and Chavakali took the enviable eighth position.

For a moment, everything was at a standstill. Then the students erupted with excitement and took over Chavakali town in style.

Students and teachers attribute this historic success to hard work, teamwork, discipline and above all, belief in God.

“We understand that discipline is the cornerstone to any success. I am happy to say that there has been improved discipline in this school and no doubt, students at Chavakali are beginning to reap its fruits,” says Ngaira Sharky, the school’s head boy, who is in charge of 1,300, students.

Breaking record

According to the school’s deputy Principal Mudevi Joab, the sterling performance in last year’s examination was not a surprise but a result of good work both by the students and the teachers.

He says the school has been breaking records and many of these are unnoticed adding that Chavakali was the first school in the whole country to introduce agriculture as a subject and also the first to offer industrial arts, wood technology.

To Mudevi, the 2013 class’ performance was a result of curriculum outline that was moulded in the year 2010.

“We had to sit down and plan because of the trend that was in the school. For a long time, the school could only produce few quality grades. We wanted a plan that could make the candidates get good grades. One way was to reward any student who gets an A with a motorbike,” says Mudevi.

He says the plan worked well and the year 2011 it almost became a threat to the local giants as the school produced 18 straight As. However, the following year, the school did not perform as well and the deputy blamed this on the teachers strike.

“We had prepared the 2012 class well. In fact we were targeting a mean of 10.33 but the strike interfered at a very wrong time,” he says. That year, the school managed position 64 nationally.

The 2013 team managed an additional 0.4 point on the set mean score of 10.33 to make it 10.73.

In out of class activities, the school equally does well comparatively. It’s star is shining brightly in choir and rugby nationally among other activities.