Located about 64 kilometres from Nairobi, students at Merishaw School in Isinya, Kajiado County, could not hide their joy and pride in being the country's best performing school in the 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.
The little-known school attained an A- (minus) mean grade of 10.5686
It took the school just two-and-a-half years to take the country by a storm in the academic world with its first attempt in the KCSE examinations.
The school draws its name from the Maa word, “Or merisho”, which means, “the conqueror”. It is also the name of the ceremony done by Maasai morans after conducting successful raids.
Chief Principal David Kariuki explained that they changed the name to make it sound like an English word: Merishaw.
He attributed the good performance to the culture at the school. The students’ dormitories are surrounded by teachers' houses for a reason, Mr Kariuki explained.
"The most precious thing to us are the children; just like the cows are to the Maasai people where the cows stay in a kraal at the centre with the manyattas surrounding them," he said
Out of the 14 subjects they registered for with the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec), they scored mean scores of straight As in six subjects.
These subjects include History and Government, Agriculture, Computer Studies, Physics, Business Studies and Christian Religious Education.
They also registered good performance in Chemistry, Biology and Geography where the school attained a mean grade of A- (minus). The candidates had a B plus mean grade in Kiswahili followed by Mathematics and Art and Design that had B plain. French recorded a mean score of B minus followed by English with a mean score of C plus.
It was on May 5, 2022 that Merishaw School started and enrolled some 96 students in the first year. The numbers shot up to 400 in early 2023 before doubling to 800 in 2024.
Mr Kariuki is not a lightweight in the academic world. He was once the Chief Principal at Alliance High School and at one time led the school to record a mean score of 11.4 with over 200 students attaining mean scores of As.
"It's the same excellence that I have carried to Merishaw. At some point in 2017, I disappeared from academia when I resigned and went to Embu County to be the County Executive Committee member for Trade and Tourism in 2017, and later on was in charge of the County's Administration until 2022," Mr Kariuki, who left the Kikuyu-based school following a students’ bullying controversy.
In 2023, he went back to his first love, education and was involved in the planning of Merishaw and when he was offered the position of Chief Principal at Merishaw, he immediately accepted.
"A mean score of 10 is familiar ground to me. We have done this with our first attempt and we are looking forward to even improve our performance in the years to come," he said.
The school’s 52 KCSE candidates, he revealed, did something interesting. Each of them sat down and wrote their individual mean score a month to the national exams.
All these forms were handed over to the principal's office where they were filed and the information used to assist the students on the subjects they believed they were weak in.
Gauging from the students' own records, the school had anticipated to have six students scoring plain As but managed to get seven.
For the 2024 KCSE class, the school had set a target of 8.5. As fate would have it, they exceeded the goal. The secret, Principal Kariuki said, was covering the syllabus by end of March last year.
Once the syllabus is done, the planning for activities for the year begins. Topic by topic, the students identify their areas of weakness and the topics are repeated until they master the content.
"At third term, it was purely topical revisions, rapid results initiatives. Papers with section A, done in 20 minutes and revised in 20 minutes and the boys conceptualise the paper," Principal Kariuki said.
Over the last one year, students from the school have been to nine different countries including Spain, for a football competition, Thailand for World Scholars competition and Robo Fest in Turkey for robotics. They have been to South Africa twice, one for STEM competition and rugby competitions. They've also been to America three times for different competitions.
With the end of the typical secondary school enrolment, the school is actively enrolling Junior Secondary School students who will begin reporting next Monday.
Asked on his final thoughts about the stellar 2024 KCSE results, Principal Kariuki was nonchalant.
"I am not one bit surprised. In my over 30 years of teaching, I have been performing extremely well and I have always known excellence and that is the only thing we'll be doing here," he said.
