Mother scores "A" in a KCSE comeback 10 years later

 

Here is a perfect example of how we should never give up on our dreams and how age is nothing but a number.

Friends and family of a mother of three who had dropped out of school for 10 years yesterday broke into song and dance yesterday after they learnt she scored an A (minus) in the KCSE exam.

Mary Shibachi quit school in February 2002, then a Fourm Four student aged 19, when she discovered she was pregnant while at Museno Secondary School in Khayega, Kakamega county.


The school could not register her for that year’s KCSE examination and she was expelled. “I did not believe it when I learnt that I was pregnant. I felt like my entire world had crumbled. It was my first attempt and I was devastated. I nearly committed suicide,” she said at her Khayega market home yesterday. Shibachi then got married and gave birth to two more children. And not one to give up, 10 years later, Shibachi decided to go back to class to pursue her dream of becoming a finance expert.

“I talked to my husband about it and he accepted my request. We sought admission at Lirhanda Girls Secondary School and the administration agreed to give me a chance,” she said. She was enrolled into Form Three and immediately caught the attention of school administration with her sterling performance both in and out of class. Lirhanda principal Phanice Oyatsi said she always believed in Shibachi’s abilities, describing her as a role model to the other students who relied on her for guidance.

The school administration sympathized with her situation and allowed her to go home on some weekends to check on her children, or the young ones would at times be brought to school whenever possible.

At Lirhanda Girls in Shinyalu, Kakamega county Shibachi emerged top student and was also ranked among the leading candidates in the county.

She was among the top candidates in Mathematics and biology in the county, scoring plain A in each. She scored A in both English and Christian Religious Education, an A minus in Kiswahili and chemistry, B plus in Business Studies and a B in History and Government.