The Starehe of Our Time

I was lucky to have attended Starehe in its heyday when Dr. Geoffrey W. Griffin, the celebrated founder of the school, was its director. For quite a number of years before I joined Starehe and during my time there, the school was always either position 1 or 2 in the final Kenya's high school exams known as KCSE. That was apart from the 2002 KCSE exams when it emerged number 5 nationally.
We, the Starehe students, used to get excited during the release of KCSE results. Media cameras would roll into the school to capture the atmosphere of excitement among Starehe students on evening assembly. Some Form 1 students, eager to appear in the media, would scramble to sit on the front benches of the school assembly hall.
When Starehe emerged number 5 in the 2002 KCSE exams, there was a palpable wave of sadness and disappointment among students and teachers of the school. Some members of the Starehe community suspected the KCSE results were doctored at the examination centre. And quite a number of that year's Starehe candidates paid to have their KCSE papers marked again. It just wasn't usual for Starehe to be number 5.
I attribute Starehe's exemplary performance in KCSE exams in our time to the way it admitted the brightest boys in the country, the crème de la crème. After the release of Kenya's national primary school exam results, most top-performing boys when asked which high school they wanted to attend, would say it was Starehe Boys' Centre. And Starehe attracted the brightest boys owing to its culture of excellence. For most of us Starehe students, the desire to excel academically was in our DNA.
Our culture of excellence was apparent in the way we kept the school neat and tidy. We used to have what we called the inter-house cleanliness competition in which the cleanest dormitory would get recognized fortnightly. The announcement of inter-house cleanliness competition riveted junior boys who did the donkey work of keeping the school spick and span.
Standards of discipline among Starehe students were also high during our time in the school. Pocketing, oversleeping in the morning, not wearing a tie in class or speaking rudely to a prefect could get a student into hot water. But if a student felt he was being punished unfairly, he could air his grievances during baraza, a weekly meeting between students and staff of the school. Most of us found barazas to be very entertaining, just listening to our fellow students complain about something or propose a new idea.
Starehe teachers also played a pivotal role in infusing us with a culture of excellence. Devoted and competent, the teachers administered tests like clockwork, sometimes over lunch hour. And some of them offered remedial classes to the academically weak students.
Perhaps due to its renowned culture of excellence, Starehe occasionally received high-profile visitors. When I was in Form 1 in 2002, Princess Anne - a member of British royal family - was the guest of honour during that year's Founder's Day. In days leading to the Founder's Day, Dr. Griffin kept reminding us of the impending visit of "Her Royal Highness". I wondered what he meant by "Her Royal Highness". And from the way he pronounced it made it sound to me like "Her Royal Hyenas". Only until much later did I realize that that was the respectful way of referring to Princess Anne.
Then the following year in 2003, our school hosted President Mwai Kibaki on Founder's Day. During one baraza a week or two before that year's Founder's Day, Dr. Griffin joked how those of us receiving prizes would shake the President's hand.
Because I was slated to get a prize on that Founder's Day for being the best music student in junior high school, I looked forward to shaking the President's hand. So when the day reached, I ironed my best school uniform and wore it in preparation for my face-to-face encounter with the President. But alas! When time to receive my prize reached, it was Prof. George Saitoti, the then Minister of Education, who handed it to me.
And then in 2005 when I was in fourth form, Hon. Moody Awori - the then Vice-President of Kenya - graced us with his presence on that year's Founder's Day. (Dr. Griffin was conspicuously missing on that occasion as he was in hospital; he died a few weeks later.) Seated on a podium as a piano accompanist that day, I happened to observe Hon. Awori closely as he delivered his speech. And wow! So impressed was I to hear him speak fluently without reading from written notes that I pointed out his eloquence of speech to my classmate Wilson Chira who was also seated on the piano dais. Chira enlightened me that the Vice-President was reading his speech from a set of two screens mounted in front of him.
Yes, Starehe was a great school during our time. That's why teachers from other schools regularly came to our school to learn the secrets of our success. I remember walking into a lecture theatre where a group of visiting teachers had been given a talk and found written on the theatre's blackboard the number of 'A's and 'A-'s that Starehe had registered in the previous KCSE exams. The numbers were impressive to say the very least.
Don't get me wrong; I don't mean to say that Starehe was an utopia during our time. The school had its share of challenges and imperfections. I'd have loved to tell you about those imperfections but to keep this story shorter than a novel, let me do that in my next story. So stay tuned to this blog.
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on the Starehe of our time, you might also enjoy another one I wrote two years ago on "Developing Mental Clarity". Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.
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