Despite fire tragedy, Hillside shines as the crown jewel of Gitegi village

In November 2017, 13-year-old Kellen Njambi appeared on the front pages of Kenya’s dailies, lifted shoulder high by adoring teachers and parents.

She had just scored 443 marks in her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) — still a school record — and placed sixth in the country.

Her school, Hillside Endarasha Academy was basking in the limelight of success. Before this feat, the school was little known.

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Located 37 kilometres from Nyeri town at Gitegi sub-location, Kieni West sub-county, the academy was started in 2012 by David Kinyua, a retired primary school teacher.

Sequestered some seven kilometres off the Nyeri-Nyahururu road in a rather serene, agricultural neighbourhood, Hillside looks nothing like its predecessors.

Resplendent in blue and beige - the school’s theme colours — the new administration block welcomes one from the imposing gate, through the beautifully manicured flower gardens in front of the classrooms, together with study charts embedded on the classroom walls, and a metre-high replica of Mt Kenya in front of the administration block. All these accentuate the school’s beauty and learning atmosphere.

On some odd days, the school’s four minibuses and a van can be found idling in the parking area

Behind the staff room are preparatory classrooms. Yonder, on what is now a relatively new part of the school, is the junior secondary school.

Both sets of pupils — those in primary and junior secondary school — meet in the playgrounds that stretch behind the dormitories and into the valley beyond.

On a regular day, pupils, the juniors in maroon and white uniforms and their seniors in dark blue and white, adorn the school compound.

Following its stellar performance in 2017, many wondered if the school would sustain where many famed private primary schools in the zone had faltered.

The scepticism, however, soon dissipated out.

The first KCPE class of 23 scored a mean score of 358.78. While that was impressive by local standards, Hillside’s second cohort, which graduated in 2017, struck a mean score of 376.50, despite the class being larger than the previous year’s by 11.

Dyhr Ebba Katrine, scored 416 marks that year and was admitted to Pangani Girls High School in Nairobi. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Geography at Egerton University.

“This school gave me the chance to be a student leader and also showed me that I could compete with anyone from any school in the country,” she says.

“It made me see life through many perspectives; quite no one thought we would do as well as we ended up doing.”

When the academy was set up in 2012 on a six-acre piece of land, it was a welcome addition in a locality which had struggled to sustain private schools.

It initially had a population of 32 pupils, with only two classrooms and three teachers. By the end of the second term this year, the school had a population of 824 pupils, 402 boys and 422 girls.

The infrastructure had also drastically improved, with 25 classrooms serving the bludgeoning pupil population. In eight years of KCPE, 46 pupils from the school have scored 400 marks and above.

The top ones have been admitted to top schools in the country, including Kapsabet High School, Kenya High School, Mang’u High School, Pangani Girls High School, Kagumo High School, Starehe Girls Centre, Baricho Boys High School and Bishop Gatimu Ngandu Girls High School.

By far, this dwarfs every other school in the sub-county.

The school has been the pride of Endarasha. It employs tens of residents from the area in various capacities — teachers, drivers, cooks, and security personnel.

As a newfound centre of excellence, Hillside inadvertently led to the connection of neighbouring homes to the national power grid, after years of waiting, within just a short time.

Residents have also secured a market for their farm produce since the school buys its groceries and other goods from the neighbourhood.

“A shopping centre started here, a few hundred metres away from the school, and has become vibrant,” says Zipporah Mwangi, a resident.

The land around the school has become increasingly lucrative, and settlements have increased dramatically.

But that is just a tip of the iceberg, she says.

“We started having children from the area going to some of the best secondary schools in the country, and this means that we will have a lot of professionals from this area in the future,” Mwangi says.

The school brought great hope to the village; quality education had come to their doorsteps, residents say.

The sight of neat, yellow school buses driving down the dusty village roads to pick and drop off pupils every morning and evening is a cherished moment for many local parents.

For a long time, local children have had to travel long distances to access decent schools.

“The roads are in deplorable condition but the school’s four buses are always up and down the winding roads to ensure the pupils are in school and at home at the right time. This convenience is what we never had before,” says Kamunya, a resident in the area,

The school has also participated in, and won, a number of inter-school competitions, providing the pupils with much-needed skills and confidence ahead of their transition to secondary school.

 It has also excelled in co-curricular activities; the girls’ handball team recently brought home the sub-county trophy after an excellent outing and even competed at the county level.

Kinyua, the school director, is a seasoned academician. He served at Labura Primary School from where he gained a reputation as a tough mathematics teacher. His employees speak of his managerial skills with awe.

“If you look at the way he runs the school, he really wants to help the community by having the pupils perform. He is very kind to the teachers and to the parents, and he has done everything in his power to make sure that the pupils get the quality education they deserve,” Mary Muriuki, a teacher at the institution, said in a past interview.

 In the community, his fame is, however, due to a kindness that is probably the very reason area parents were quick to trust him with their children.

A number of pupils at the school, which has had more admissions in recent times, are fully sponsored by Kinyua.

As the debate on the fire incident raged on in social media spaces, one could note that locals, who have known Kinyua for years, were first to sympathise with him following the tragedy; as many who are not familiar with him fanned public ire, all noting his contribution to the development of education in the area.

Katrine says that as a pupil at the school, she was privileged to have a director who cast the image of a father.

“The director was available for us. We did not see him as ‘The Director’. He was there, listening to us, making jokes and laughing with us. I believe that ensured we had an easy time.”

In last year’s KCPE, with a mean score of 360, the school was second in the county behind Ndima Kanini Academy of Karatina.

Hillside is, to parents, the ideal example of the rise, and eventual victory, of an underdog.

Kieni West, which, together with Kieni East forms the larger Kieni Constituency, has not always had the best-performing schools in national examinations.

Kieni, which is located on the leeward side of Mt Kenya, is rather drier compared to the rest of Nyeri County. It often features in the news during the biting dry seasons that have been perennial in recent years, as effects of climate change become more and more pronounced.

With the area’s poor infrastructure and underdevelopment, protests by a section of parents over local school’s poor performance have been a common occurrence.

In January 2016, parents of Watuka Primary School took to the streets because of the school’s poor performance in the 2015 KCPE exam.

They demanded the immediate resignation, transfer or firing of teachers in the school.

Against a challenge to keep improving its record, the Hillside candidate class has been growing by the year. From 23 in 2016, the class had grown to 34, 48, 59, 78, 83, 101 and 92 in the following years.

‘‘It is sad what happened. We hope the school reopens. This school means so much to us, and anyone who has followed its performance knows that,” says Joseph Kahuria, a youth leader from the area.

And when the transition to the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) was introduced, the school was still primed for the sky.

Mr Nahashon Kariuki, the Deputy Headteacher, says the school is just translating the successes of the 8-4-4 system into the new system.

“This school brought to us happiness we would never have imagined. It is so sad all this has happened. We really hope this ends fast and the school reopens. This school means so much to us and everyone who has followed its performance knows just how important it has been,” says Joseph Kahuria, a youth leader from the area.