In the bustling Kiawara Onion Market in Nyeri, 19-year-old Eric Maina cuts a distinct figure among the vendors calling out to passing travellers.
For the past five years, he has been selling onions — not by choice, but out of necessity — to raise school fees and stay in school.
His daily routine involves physically demanding tasks such as unloading heavy sacks of onions and sorting them before selling them to commuters along the busy Nyeri-Nyahururu highway.
“I would come here every day after school around 6pm and leave by 9pm to give myself enough time to complete my homework,” he recalls.
Despite the long hours, he ensured he finished his studies before retiring to bed close to midnight.
It was a gruelling routine, but one that paid off in the end; Eric emerged the top student at St George Secondary School, scoring a B plain of 66 points in the Kenya Certificate Examinations (KCSE).
Not even the hard-earned money was enough to keep him in school, he relied on the generosity of his relatives and the community to top up what he had.
“Out here, life is not easy, on a good day I would earn at most Sh300, while on other days, I returned home empty-handed,” he says.
As the firstborn in a single-parent family of three, his role in his family went beyond that of an ordinary teenager — he was the breadwinner, stepping up to support his mother and his younger sibling.
His mother, a coffee hawker in Githurai, Nairobi, could hardly provide enough to cater for the family’s basic needs. He says, life for him has been anything but simple.
After completing primary school in 2019 with 271 marks in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams, Eric’s dream of joining secondary school was put on hold due to financial difficulties.
His family could not afford to pay his school fees, forcing him to look for work immediately after sitting his exams.
“I started hustling right after class eight and managed to join form one in the third term,” he recalls, “I am grateful to my principal, who admitted me even though I didn’t have school fees for that term.”
In 2023, Eric sat for the KCSE exams and scored a C plain of 39 points. While many might have settled for that, he felt he had not reached his potential and decided to give it another shot.
“People thought I was crazy for wanting to go back, especially since I could barely meet my basic needs at home. I returned to my former school and requested a chance to repeat the year,” he says, adding that he wants to pursue a degree in Computer Science.
Fortunately, the institution, a day school, waived Eric’s lunch fees, leaving him to only worry about his personal upkeep.
It was during this second stint at school that he reconnected with four of his former classmates, all of whom had chosen a similar path- to repeat form four and aim for better grades.
Together, they formed a tight-knit group — a friendship born out of shared struggles and a mutual determination to rewrite their academic stories.
Among them was Anthony Ndirangu, who admits that deciding to repeat was far from easy.
After scoring a C plain of 40 points in his first KCSE attempt, Anthony realized that his dream of pursuing a degree in Education was out of reach.
However, his decision to return to school was met with scepticism.
“Some of my friends were discouraging, they told me that even if I repeated, I would not improve my grade, “he says.
Despite the negativity, Anthony pressed on, achieving a grade B of 64 points. But the journey wasn’t without personal struggles.
“During that year, my mother fell ill and as the last-born, I had to do all the household chores,” he recalls.
Balancing schoolwork with housework was a challenge, but he devised a strategy that kept him on track.
“I worked closely with my teachers, who helped me identify my weak areas and create a study plan,” he says, adding that regular counselling sessions provided the emotional support he needed to stay focused.
During the holidays, Anthony and his group would meet at the school compound to help each other study.
“We faced similar struggles—balancing work and studies and had to constantly innovate to make the most of the little time we had,” he says.
Adding that being repeaters also came with unique pressures as there was a lot of expectation from everyone- pushing them to work even harder.
Principal Mwangi Wambugu credits the achievements to the school’s nurturing environment and committed teaching staff.
“Our teachers played a key role by providing continuous guidance and counselling throughout the year. To ensure they stayed on course, we assigned them to different teachers for personalized support,” he says.
