Early Childhood development holds the secret to education

Written by Jane Naitore Tuesday, 17 January 2012 11:40

When others sit, we stand. When others stand, we stand out. When others standout, we remain outstanding.The above secret has s always been a motivating factor for this school to take seriously early childhood development to remain at the top.

The Set Green Academy in Kisii County has been rated the best performing school in the region owing to its outstanding performance in consecutive Kenya Certificate of primary Education exams.

Even after producing the best student in the County, the school was rated the best performing school in the region after 10 of its 53 candidates who sat for KCPE last year attained 400 and above marks out of the total of 500.

In the previous year, 12 out of the 56 candidates had 400 and above marks. We are always set to tackle the syllabus differently from preschool, explains the school Director Mr. Mochama Onsongo.

Onsongo, the father of four says both he and his wife who are educationists had seen a deficit of good performance in the region, and parents were then transferring their children to western region and Nairobi schools.

Having done his first degree in education and his wife having been a lecturer at Nyanchwa teachers college, Onsongo says they diagnosed the problem to be poor preparation of children from preschool which many private and public schools do not consider.

The Set Green Hill Academy was then born in 1996 as a pre-school to prove that Kisii can also compete in education with other giants elsewhere.

The school then grew class by class until the year 2005 when all the first KCPE candidates were posted to either National or provincial schools.

The school produced the best boy in Nyanza in 2008 and in 2010 four out of the top 10 students in Nyanza were from the school.

Two years ago, it produced the 2nd best girl in the nation while this years best student in Nyanza was a girl from the school.

The local Adult Education officer Ms. Orpha Nyakundi agrees learning in preschool needs to be improved as it is the foundation for the rest of the levels of learning.

She says if seriously considered, and talents of children identified and developed in early age, there will not be a problem of wasted youths.

Many of youth joining adult learning are those who either drop out from formal primary school or those who fail to qualify to join secondary school because they did not get proper foundation in preschool, she says.

Mr. Onsongo notes the school sponsors 68 orphaned students in its corporate social responsibility majority who are total Aids orphans.

He says the girl that was rated the best girl in the county and also in Nyanza in the recently released results was one of those sponsored from preschool. Evelyn Nyachaya bagged 428 marks.

Onsongo says the orphans are sponsored by Equity Bank, Jomo Kenyatta Foundation and Rhino Education Foundation. He says the school every year posts students to each of the 18 national schools after which some are doing law or medicine at the university, while some have sponsored to further their education in the US and Britain.

Onsongo says private public schools in the region have been allowed to visit the school to copy good practices.

According to the District Education Officer Mr. Martin Mwalo, Set Green Academy ,Elimu, Sakagwa, Rehema and AIC Grace academies are some of the few private schools in the district that are not only uplifting education standards in the region, but are in the frontline in implementing the government requirements. He noted that the schools outstanding performance had greatly impacted on the general improvement in the Kisii central district.

Having taken at-least 400 students to national schools since the school was begun has proven this is a centre of excellence in the region, poses Mr. Onsongo.

The school has 16 classes for tuition, two streams from class four to eight and one stream for the rest of the lower classes.

The structures are storied, with dormitories named after national schools to inspire the children to work hard to reach the required marks for national secondary schools.

The school intends to construct an E-learning centre in the near future and include French learning classes starting next month. It has two boreholes to ensure continuous provision of water and construct own furniture including beds to ensure quality.

The ministry of Public Health and sanitation treats the water frequently to prevent communicable diseases.

Onsongo says the school which stands on a 2 acre land is situated 1km from Kisii town in Jogoo market. It has total of 175 boys and 117 girls in classes four to eight, and 62 boys and 58 girls in lower classes one to three.

The school has 71boys and 64 girls in preschool while the whole student population totals to 547 although it could grow in the coming days as parents seek places in various levels.

With 27 teaching staff and 22 support staff, the cost is also financed by Family Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank and Cooperative Banks. The Ministry of education assists in regulating and controlling policy framework and quality assurance, explains Onsongo.

The school also does joint examinations with the public schools for monthly evaluation and also participates in monthly games sports and music festivals. Onsongo says the school has a strategic plan for 15 years focusing curriculum delivery and development, Human resource, infrastructure development, resource mobilization, and, evaluation.

The strategic plan adopts medium term expenditure with rolling budget to ensure that finances go where they are intended.

To ensure teachers remain relevant, the school has organized periodical three months refresher courses with other stakeholders where they learn strategic management, education and spiritual management, leadership technology and cultural environment.

These enable them to produce students that are round developed to tackle the challenges in life.

However it has not been smooth sailing for Onsongo as the school has faced many bottlenecks.

He says the children who are not sponsored leave school with huge balances which add to the cost of supporting the orphans.

He notes that he stays with about 10 of the total orphans during holidays especially those who have no relatives to stay with.

The Set Green Hill Academy director is a consultant with World Bank in Eastern Africa. He has Master degree in strategic planning and management and has worked with Finish Embassy and ICIPE among others.

Born in 1966 born, Onsongo is 9th born in a family of 12 children. He schooled in Moitunya Primary school in Manga district before joining Kwale High School where he left with a division 1. He attended St. Josephs Kitale for the A level then did his first degree in Egerton.

Mr. Onsongo has on several occasions indicated his interest in vying for the seat of governor for Nyamira County where he was born.