The bruising walk to the top of hallowed mountain

By AMOS KAREITHI

From the lofty seat in the tastefully furnished office, he savours the fruits of his labour smiling, retracing the torturous journey he has travelled for the last 15 years.

From the humiliation of being sacked, sinking into financial doldrums and "hawking" information technology to desperate youths using mobile computers and generators, Simon Nyutu Gicharu has known it all.

The crowning glory of his toils was the recent award of a charter to run the Mt Kenya University, which was conferred last month by President Kibaki. And what a journey it has been!

Mr Simon Gicharu during the interview in his office in Thika. [PHOTOS: Martin Mukangu/STANADARD/STANDARD]

Gicharu joined the ranks of the jobless when he was sacked by the Teachers Service Commission in June 1995, after he went to the Cranfield School of Management in Britain to study Finance for Enterprise Growth without approval from the Ministry of Education.

But Gicharu was accustomed to taking gambles, quite literally, since his days as a pupil at Kiawairia Primary School in Githunguri.

And like the Gambler in Kenny Rogers’ song, he long learned how to throw his aces and run when the going got tough.

Petrified boys

This was after a teacher busted Gicharu and a group of boys gambling instead of being in class learning. The dreaded teacher, Kairu Ndathe, grabbed the truants by the scruff of their necks and led them back to school.

But as the petrified boys were frogmarched, Gicharu ran for dear life, startling the teacher who watched helplessly.

"I wanted to multiply money but learnt early when to run away from a deal or hold on. Had I waited for the teacher, my mother would have been very cross," he recalls.

But the escape was to haunt Gicharu throughout his primary education, for he lived in daily dread of teacher Ndathe catching up with him.

"I had sworn never to proceed to Class Seven. I repeated Class Six although I was ranked position 21. When Ndathe learnt this, he shepherded me to Class Seven, promising never to punish me," Gicharu recalls.

So much water has since passed under the bridge, but Gicharu internalised the vital lessons, which he later employed to become one of the first Kenyans to start a private university.

Disappointments, too, punctuated his journey, especially when his dream of schooling in a boarding school was shattered when he sat for the Certificate of Primary Education in 1978 and attained 26 out of 36 points.

"I was admitted to Gathiruini Secondary School, a day school that was 16 kilometres away. I had to walk there and back every morning and evening. This was like a punishment," Gicharu recalls.

At the school, he organised dances through Gathiruini Bomas Club, where entrants paid fifty cents, making him a tidy profit of Sh2 weekly.

By the time he was admitted to Murang’a High School for his Advanced Levels, Gicharu had sharpened his entrepreneurial skills and inevitably ended up as a Dining Hall captain.

College Sweetheart

He joined Young Christian Society and inched his way to the school canteen and ultimately started supplying students with bread.

"I gave the officials a quarter-bread daily and they in turn allowed me to keep all the profits. The business was so lucrative that by the time I sat Form Six final exams, the Kenya Advanced Certificate of Education (KACE), I had accumulated Sh20,000."

As things turned out, Gicharu did not qualify for university admission. On the day he went for his results, Gicharu decided to repeat Form Five. The school head offered him the opportunity.

"When I went home in the evening, my father, Steven Gicharu was stunned to learn that I had secured a place at Murang’a High School," he recalls.

When Gicharu re-sat KACE, he was admitted to Kenyatta University where he would graduate three years later with a Bachelor’s degree in Education (Double Maths), and a bride, Jane Gathoni, his college sweetheart.

Upon graduation, he was posted to Thika Technical Institute in 1990 while his new wife was hired at Mang’u High School.

But he was not destined to be a teacher for long. He lost his job while training in Britain.

"Life then was tough. I tried several businesses, even as I ran Kenya Youth Enterprise Association," he says of his computer outreaches in villages, and what planted the seed for the future university.

"In 1996, I teamed up with Africa Christian Churches and schools. The elders assisted me through villages teaching computer in churches. We would carry a generator to far-flung areas."

In the meantime, Gicharu was still nurturing the Thika School of Management Studies which he later upgraded to Thika Institute of Technology in 2001. Ten years later, the institute has grown into a fully-fledged university.

"We want to generate technical knowledge relevant to development needs of our country," says Gicharu.