Boy who opted to repeat Class Eight despite scoring over 400 KCPE marks gets help

Well-wishers have come to the rescue of a 14-year-old boy who sat Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) last year in Nyeri County – and scored 403 marks out of the possible 500 after Royal Media Services Ltd highlighted his plight.

Dennis Ngatia Wangu, a former pupil at Kimahuri Primary School in Kieni Constituency, had his dream of joining Kagumo High School shattered – momentarily – after his mother, Jane Wangu Ngatia, revealed her inability to raise Ksh 53, 000 tuition fee needed by the institution.

Ms Ngatia had consequently appealed to the boy’s former school to allow him repeat Standard Eight.

However, Ngatia’s aspiration to become an aeronautical engineer is back on track after Kieni MP Kanini Kega and businesswoman and patron of Maendeleo Mashinani Lobby group, Rahab Mukami, came to his aid, pledging to sponsor his secondary school education.

Others who came to Ngatia’s aid is a well-wisher, John Kahiu, who paid his one-year school fees.

The County Government of Nyeri also pledged Ksh 10,000 annual bursary for four years.

Kanini Kega and John Kahiu met Ngatia, his mother Jane Wangu Ngatia and grandmother Margaret Wamaitha in Nyeri Town, where they paid for his school fees at a bank and promised to cater for the boy’s shopping ahead of joining school on Monday.

His mother is a casual laborer who was blessed with twins in August last year had earlier told Edaily that “the sad reality of her son being unable to join his dream secondary school due to poverty was ripping her heart apart”.

According to Kimahuri Primary School Deputy Head teacher Mirriam Nyagi, Ngatia, a former head prefect at the institution, is a bright, responsible and disciplined boy.