HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM
Helping eager students continue learning
All Kenyan 8th graders must pass a rigorous, multi-day national examination to be accepted into high school (and many students end up repeating 8th grade). Once accepted into high school, students and their families have to come up with the financial means to pay for high school, the costs of which sometimes approach a family's annual income. A cultural practice of reaching out to extended family for school fees runs deep, but the students we support in high school come from critically-poor families and for them raising funds for fees - let alone everything else a high school student needs to succeed - is a goal that is out of reach. In many cases it is only through the support of our sponsors that the ambitious but needy students we support have the opportunity to graduate from high school.
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93% of our high school students scored in the top two-thirds of national exam results |
Being able to go to high school is perceived by students as a significant accomplishment in their coming of age and a prerequisite for a better future. Attending high school is an opportunity that that nearly half of Kakamega's youth do not have, and for the orphans and vulnerable children we support who might not otherwise afford it, high school provides great strength, hope, confidence, and motivation. KOCC's high school students and graduates come from remote farms and destitute, often traumatic backgrounds, but they work incredibly hard when given the opportunity to attend high school, and they never stop inspiring us.
Because of transportation challenges and limited resources, the best public high schools in Kenya are large residential boarding schools. They are more costly, but when our students qualify for a better education at boarding school, we make sure they can go. |