Age is just a number: ‘Every school said I was too old but that didn’t stop me’

It is evening preps time at Kibabii Boys’ High School and students are huddled around one of them holding a chemistry book.

They are engaged in lively conversation, and they occasionally flip through the tome of books beside them to cross-refer on what they are discussing.

“Class discussions are my favourite part of being in school. There is so much to learn from these young boys,” says Wilberforce Olum, his eyes darting from one student to another.

He has been the centre of attraction in the school ever since he made his silent entry last year.

As Form One students milled about the registration office on reporting day, he watched it all from a distance. He stood in a lone corner, head cleanly shaved for the event. When the name was called, he stepped up.

“Where is the student sir?” the teacher in charge of registration asked.

“I am the one. I am the student,” he responded, arms behind his back.

“You are 38 years old?” the teacher asked.

“Yes sir!” he said.

The teacher stepped out to consult. Never in the history of the school had such an old student been admitted.

Olum chuckles when he talks about how he became a spectacle as soon as word went round that a grown man was among the students queuing to join Form One.

“People formed groups around me, begging to hear my story,” he says.

His story is long. It starts from Amagoro, Busia County, on the day he bundled his clothes in an old tattered bag and decided to leave home. He was a teenager, living with his polygamous father who loved beer, and in his intoxicated state, would give his children a thorough whipping.

“Home became a difficult place to live in, so I had to look for other options,” he says. He cracks his knuckles, then gazes into space, as if trying to recollect painful memories.

Olum chose was to head to Eldoret town, where his uncle worked as a casual labourer, to look for a job. He had sat his Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam and scored above 300 marks, but his parents could not afford to take him to secondary school. He had another resit, with hopes that situations would change, but he still could not join Form One.

Love story

In Eldoret, he got a job selling polythene papers, and says the only thing that kept him moving was hopes that he would someday get into secondary school. He nurtured the dream for more than two decades before he finally got admitted into Kibabii Boys.

Olum says one day he noticed a beauty – a young woman above his social class. She was in college, studying veterinary medicine. He took a leap and asked her out.

His love story, the idea that she accepted him, married him and birthed him six children is one of the reasons Olum decided to go back to school.

“I am here because of my family. I want them to get lessons from me, and to learn that you never go wrong when you believe in yourself,” he says.

In 2015, he decided to seek secondary education. He was told he had to resit KCPE exam due to the many changes the syllabus has undergone since he was last in school in 1995.

He registered as a private candidate, and scored 356 marks. He did not know that getting an admission into a secondary school would be the most difficult part.

“Everywhere I went, I was told I was too old,” says Olum, now aged 39.

He was almost giving up when he got an admission letter for Kibabii.

“No words can express the kind of joy I felt. I had some fear, but I was happy,” he says.

Kibabii Principal Nichodemus Ogeto says Olum has not gotten into disciplinary situations that he confesses would be awkward to handle.

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