Headmistress Rhoada Kitilit honored Chewtich on Education Day.
CHURO, KENYA -“I want to be a teacher,” says Katikit Chewutich, 7, a Pokot girl who, against her family’s wishes, was admitted to first grade at Churo Primary School earlier this year.
The first time Chewutich ran away from her parent’s home because she was not allowed to attend school, she went to stay with her grandparents in a nearby village called Ol Moran. But Chewutich was forced to return home when her grandparents passed away earlier this year.
Once she was back at home, she returned to her duty -- tending to the family’s sheep. But one day she caught glimpse of a different life. “I saw young girls my age. [They] were smartly dressed with combed hair, hurrying somewhere and I wanted to be like them,” she says in Pokot dialect, translated by a teacher.
“I never spoke with them, but I decided to abandon my sheep and walk quietly behind them,” she says. Chewutich, no longer worried about her animals, followed the girls for half a mile until she found herself in a compound of small buildings with shiny rooftops. She looked out of place with her traditional dreadlocks and dirty clothes. But she says she was determined to speak to someone.
“We welcomed her and shaved her dreadlocks,” says Rhoda Kitilit, the headmistress of Churo Primary School, of the girl’s arrival, who also ran away from her family at a young age to pursue education.
When Kitilit admitted Chewutich to the school her parents turned up and demanded that she be sent home. When Chewutich refused to go, Kitilit supported the girl and threatened to report the parents if they remove their daughter from school. That was seven months ago.
“At first she did not understand what a school was, but with time she has appreciated the environment and she is copping on well with the rest,” says Kitilit.
In 2002, a new wave of leadership swept through Kenya. Free education became a primary platform for many members of the multi-party democracy. But, nationwide, as in Churo, a shortage of teachers remains the primary problem. On average, the national regulations suggest each classroom should have 40 pupils per teacher. In Nairobi, most classrooms have upwards of 70 students. And Churo Primary School, which suffers from an extreme shortage of teachers are 130-150 students per classroom. Kitilit’s push to increase female enrolment has also caused serious overcrowding. Still, education accounts for more than 22 percent of the annual budget in Kenya.
Apart from the cultural hindrances for girls in rural districts to attend school, the nomadic lifestyles are also an impediment. “These families do not stay in one place for long as they move in search of pasture and water for their animals, hence they move along with their children,” says James Ole Kiyapi, the permanent secretary to the Ministry of Education.
Pastoralist Traditions Hamper Education for Girls
In her family, Chewutich is the only girl among nine brothers. Her brothers are herd boys who spend their days looking after cattle and goats. Chewutich, like most girls of pastoralist tribes, was a vital asset to her family’s farm. It is widely believed here that sheep reproduce faster when tended by girls. In pastoralist tribes this belief is the primary reasons that girls are kept out of school – to tend the thriving flocks.
“About 80 percent of school age[d] girls among the pastoralists don’t go to school despite the free primary education [that was] introduced here in 2002,” says Joyce Kamaina, the area education officer of Churo. “Girls stay home to look after sheep, undergo female genital mutilation, then they are married off at an early age of 10 to 15 years,” she says.
“I don’t want to go home because my father is against my schooling,” says Chewutich today. Chewutich does have one relative who supports her bid for education, her paternal uncle Charles Topero. Kitilit reports that Topero visits the girl occasionally. “He brings her small tokens when he can and just comes to check up on her when he has no money,” Kitilit says. But Topero has not yet been able to take his niece from school on holidays for fear that his brother will kidnap her. Chewutich now spends holidays with Kitilit.
Female Headmistress Triples the Number of Girls in Local School
Churo Primary School is located in what is known as a “hardship district” in Kenya. The school is in a rural area and is severely understaffed. Despite the national standard that mandates each classroom have no more than 40 students, Churo Primary School classes host as many as 130 students in each class. The school has 662 pupils, 309 of which are girls.
Headmistress Kitilit says her struggle for education was very similar to Chewutich’s struggle, which is, she says, the reason she fought to keep her in school and has become her guardian. In Churo, located in the Rift Valley more than seven hundred miles from Nairobi, Kitilit is a leader in the fight of girl’s education.
“Since I took over the school, the number of girls has gone up,” says Kitilit. In her three years as headmistress, she has nearly tripled the number of girls from 116 to 309. Her next challenge, she says, will be to bring more female teachers to the school. The girls, she says, are in need of mentors and role models.
Kitilit says her leadership and insistence that girls receive education opportunities has not been well received by others in Churo. “It has been taken as a challenge by my community, which does not believe in the potential of women being breadwinners for the family,” says Kitilit. As the students celebrated Education Week in Churo last month, Kitilit spent her days urging the parents to enroll their children in school.
During Education Week, Chewutich was publically honored for her courage to defy her family’s wishes to go to school. She was given new books by James Teko, an anthropologist and a guest of honor who presided over Churo’s Education Day ceremony.
In her eighth month as a first grader, Chewutich is learning to read and write. She says she is determined to finish her studies, become a teacher and earn a salary. “When I grow up and complete my studies, I want to be a role model for girls in my village,” says Chewutich smiling.
