Emanani Muslim Secondary School in Matungu Sub-county of Kakamega County is slowly picking up in academics thanks to the hardworking Principal Mr Wycliffe Indakwa.
Barely five months after taking over as the head of the institution, the soft-spoken Principal has put the little-known school located in Mayoni ward in an academic ladder going by the new measures.
According to Mr Indakwa, teamwork, dedicated staff, discipline and stringent academic programmes in the school are among measures that have been put in place.
“Despite the school being a purely day school, students are in class by 6:00 a.m. and lessons start as early as 6.30 a.m. We value time so much and we never gamble especially with candidates who are even exempted from manual work,” Mr Indakwa said.
Normal school programmes run from 8.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. before class remedial sets in to 7.00 p.m. on week days.
Indakwa said on Saturdays, they have remedial classes from 6.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. and Sundays are optional.
Mr Indakwa avers that all the measures put in place are aimed at completing syllabus coverage in time and paving the way for super revision.
“We all know that quality education is very expensive and for us to get results, we have to do things differently,” said Mr Indakwa.
According to Mr Indakwa, 99.9 per cent of the population comes from the locality and a reasonable number of them joined the school with low entry behaviour but they are glad that they have adopted the new measures and they know their purpose of being in school.
The candidate class is being subjected to more internal and external exams administered in KNEC standards and this has also helped identify the weak areas to focus on. They also reteach where they feel they missed out and this has worked positively.
“We understand that we cannot realise production in a hostile environment and by that, we’ve taken into consideration the welfare of teachers for them to feel motivated,” he said.
When I joined this school in September last year, I first had to do the following:
a) Stepped in instilling discipline and absenteeism which was very common.
b) Fought against academic indiscipline and students were taught how to plan and prepare for studies.
c) Ensured that students had notes, exercise books, question papers, revised tests etc.
d) Increased student/teacher contact hours and books.
e) Introduced teachers’ motivation.
The new measures saw the school improve in KCSE performance as the top student from the school (Oscar Sakwa) was among the best performers in Matungu after scoring a B+ in the KCSE examination.
The school also registered an improved mean from 2.3 to 3.11 a positive deviation of (+0.81).
In 2025, the school under the leadership of the soft-spoken Principal is going to impress as they are already riding on the measures already in place and they are optimistic that the number of students who will get above the minimum university entry grade is likely to go up.
“We also plan to motivate the best performers per class and towards the end of February, we will take top performers to Ambururu Waterfalls in Musanda and also plan of taking teachers for bonding,” he said.
As all this is happening, the school is also grappling with a myriad of challenges. Shortage of teachers, delayed and inadequate capitation is also a major factor that needs to be addressed.
Shortage of teachers is also a serious challenge as the school has only 9 teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission and this has forced the school to collapse a number of classes.
“Poor fee payments is another major challenge as parents of this school are the worst when it comes to fee payments and this affects service delivery,” he said.
Social challenges and permissiveness of society also affect us but we always talk to our students to know their purpose of being in school.
In co-curricular, Mwalimu avers that the school has a very rich history in soccer and they going to balance academics and co-curricular as they are going to maintain a school team manageable by the school standard.
Mr Principal lauded the Matungu area Member of Parliament for supporting the school, especially on bursaries to the needy students who he claims a number of them are beneficiaries.
