I know you may be wondering about the title of this blog, but it’s actually our current state of the school year here in Kenya as we’re making up for lost time at school.
We are grateful for a successful and productive school year. It started with a lot of uncertainty and lack of direction from the ministry of education due to the pandemic. We had shutdowns and lockdowns in the country as measures to mitigate the spread of Covid. With these measures in place schools were shut down for the whole of 2020 hence disrupting the coming 2021 school calendar.
We had to play catch up with the calendar to finish the year and we have just ended the 2020 school calendar this last week. We’re so thrilled - but at the same time there’s not much time to rest as we break for just 1 week and start the new school year.
The normal school year in Kenya is 3 terms. You have 3 months each term and a months break in between. So there are a lot of adjustments. We thank God for our teachers who have taken up the challenge and have worked tirelessly to make sure our students get to finish the syllabus and are ready for the next classes in record time.
We seek to ask for prayers as we start this new year and face new challenges of squeezing everything into a smaller time frame than we’re use to. We seek to ask you to pray for our teachers as they prepare materials, to have wisdom on how to do it in a short time and be able to examine the learners in that same period. May you also pray for the students as they prepare for the new class they will come in with new challenges and little time for adjustment, compared to what they are used to in their former classes.
We also have graduated several into universities and other institutions in the country which is a great praise!
I can testify and say we have been able to send 30 students to the university and 60 into tertiary institutions since the beginning of the schools program here in Kenya. Most of the students who have been able to get to this level of education are the first in their entire extended families.
As we begin this new year, may we get to understand and adapt into the new normal, and succeed in achieving dreams and showing Christ to the children through your support, that we are truly grateful for.