Student scores B after escaping forced marriage

Jackline Alebo. She scored B plain in the 2023 KCSE. [Courtesy]

Jackline Alebo, 18, who escaped early marriage scored B plain in the 2023 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).

Alebo said the results were a relief after breaking free from the retrogressive cultural practice.

She attributed the success to her mother and uncle who rescued her from forced marriage to a man known to her father.

What still baffles Alebo is why her father enrolled her in a pre-school with her three other step sisters but later denied her the chance to complete her education.

“My dad took me with my three step-sisters to join pre-school but one dropped out for marriage, upon joining Standard Five in 2016, my father summoned us insisting that he was not going to educate us instead he said that he had suitors seeking our hand in marriage,” she said.

She said her father was candid that education wasn’t a priority to them but a place to push time while waiting for marriage.

The words were devastating and Alebo opted to call her uncle who had just completed KCSE.

“My mother with the help of my uncle took me to a boarding school to save me from forced marriage because my father was ready with a suitor who had two wives, I would have been the third wife,” she said.

She would stay at her uncle's place in Amaya, Tiaty, Baringo County, where she enrolled in Kaptuya Primary Boarding School.

Coming from a polygamous family where her father had five wives with her mother being the third one, none of her siblings had gone past Grade Five.

Alebo’s father would disown her and direct his anger to her mother for defying his order.

“I felt bad that my mother would be beaten because of my actions. I still appreciate the way she remained strong and never gave up on me,” she said.

She scored 350 marks in KCPE and was admitted to Kituro High School in Baringo Central but due to lack of school fees, she knew her dream of completing education was at stake.

Luckily after sharing her predicament with a former primary school teacher the story went viral on social media.

The teacher would secure for her admission to Tangulbei High School in Tiaty, after the community came together to support her.

Alebo said her father was disappointed that she was going on with her studies.

“I saw my uncle join university which encouraged me and motivated me as he would tell me the importance of education which gave the desire to succeed,” she said.

She said hunger to change her life and the community drives her to complete education.

Alebo was targeting to score A and is optimistic that she would achieve her dream of becoming a doctor.

Tangulbei High School Deputy head teacher Bernard Kunusia said Alebo was one of their best students.

“She is one of the most humble learners we have ever had, disciplined, she would arrive in school early during opening day, given her circumstances, the board had decided that she remains in school to avoid the perpetrators of forced marriage from getting her,” he said.