Degree after two decades: How woman's resolve bore fruit at last

Forty-two-year-old Kezziah Muchiri sat her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in 2000, but due to a combination of poverty, disease, lack of adequate government support and other vagaries of life, she only graduated from university last week.

When she started her degree her firstborn child was in Class Two.

“My firstborn is now in Form Four. She was telling me “Mum, will I complete high school before you get your degree? She motivated me.” 

Her father and four siblings travelled from her home at Kandara in Murang’a to celebrate the achievement, all too aware of the odds stacked against her, yet she had prevailed. She graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) degree at Meru University of Science and Technology (MUST). 

While ideally, she was to graduate around 2005, her peasant parents could not raise fees to enable her to join university after her KCSE.

She has come a long way to earn her first major academic goal, yet she has two more dreams, a master’s and a PhD. Her age notwithstanding she is determined to earn the two degrees to fulfil her quest to be the best she can.

The soft-spoken, but eloquent Kezziah is currently working as an accountant at a local vocational training centre, for a paltry Sh10,000. She remains unfazed and hoping for better days ahead.

“I am hopeful for a better job to enable me to sustain my family with basic needs and pursue education to master’s degree and PhD levels so that I achieve my dreams,” she told The Standard.

After all she has been through, Kezziah, the last born in a family of seven, is only glad she has a degree in the bag. 

Twenty-four years ago (2000), she, just like her siblings had struggled through school and it was no big surprise she only managed a C in the KCSE. She did not qualify to join the university. “I wanted a university grade so I repeated,” she said.In 2001 she sat for KCSE again and managed a B-minus grade, enough to qualify her for university.

“I qualified for a Bachelor of Arts (Education) but my parents could not afford the fees. My sisters had just finished Form Four and he had spent the little he earned from our small tea farm on their fees,” recalls Kezziah.

Her father enrolled her for a computer course for two months after which she started to work as a house girl in Embu. She saved some money and having attained an A in mathematics, she enrolled at Murang’a College of Technology in 2004, for a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and did Sections I and II.  She ran out of funds and went back to work as a house girl again.

“Because of the frustrations, I got married in 2006,” she says. The marriage did not last and Kezziah, now determined more than ever to pursue her academic goal, found work as a house girl again in Meru.

Luckily in January 2009 she started work as an accountant-cum secretary at  Buuri High School, Meru.She also taught Mathematics at the school. The school principal, Laban Mutwiri encouraged her to pursue her dream of getting a degree.She decided to sit KCSE again and resumed studying for it. “From Monday to Friday I worked in the office and spent evenings and weekends studying.” The teachers at the school helped her in Physics, Literature and Kiswahili.

When she sat for KCSE in 2011 for the third time, she managed an impressive mean grade of B + (plus) with A’s in Mathematics, CRE and Agriculture.

She wanted to be an accountant and had applied to join Murang’a University. She resumed hawking in Murang’a town as she waited for admission. A friend managed to get her a housekeeping job at Murang’a University.

She shares how when the university’s registrar called her to inform her of her admission, he was shocked to discover she worked as a cleaner at the institution.

“He had thought I was in Meru because that was the address I had indicated. He was shocked when I walked into her office to collect the admission letter, in my housekeeper uniform,” she shares.

“The registrar said I couldn’t study and do a housekeeping job.  The management decided to give me a (part-time) job in the procurement department,” she adds

During the subsequent long academic holiday, Kenya Women Finance Trust offered her a job in Nyeri but was later transferred to Meru. When school resumed in January 2014 she applied for part-time studies, but the university had no such arrangement for undergraduate students. Kezziah opted for an academic leave. “I did not want to lose my job because then I would not be able to raise part of my fees and feed my family.”

She applied for a transfer from Murang’a University to Meru University of Science and Technology in 2015 where she studied part-time.

However, her son got sick and was admitted for six months. She had to resign from her job in 2017 to be with her sick child in hospital.

Afterwards, she applied for an extended academic leave and started selling samosas, chips and other foodstuffs in Meru town.

Kezziah got a job as an accountant in 2019 before Covid-19 struck and she and others were laid off. In 2022 she managed to secure a job and resumed her studies at MUST.

After all her travails she eventually sat her final examinations and she thanked the university for allowing her to do so despite a fee balance of Sh38,000.“I had pledged to settle it before my graduation and the university management was kind enough to let me do the exams.”

Last week, she graduated after juggling between studies, working and taking care of two children; a 17-year-old and a seven-year-old as a single mother.