By Coast Times Reporter
Barke Mahsen, a girl from Matuga Girls High School, has ended a six-year ‘dry spell’ of Grade A in Kwale County in the just released KCSE examinations.
The last time Kwale County produced an A was in 2016 by a boy from Kwale High.
Mahsen’s school of Matuga, which is also a national girls’ school, last produced an A in 2013. Mahsen had an A of 81 points making her the best student in the entire county.
Mahsen was just doing her normal home chores in Malindi when the 2022 KCSE results were released by Education CS Ezekiel Machogu on Friday last week.
She never had any clue about her performance until when a relative came in running while gasping for air reading an sms that she has topped in her school.
Her performance has put back her school in the limelight and reclaimed the lost glory of Kwale county.
Mahsen has also proved that a girl child’s education matters.
Out of 10, 485 candidates, boys and girls that sat for the KCSE exam from around 103 registered secondary schools in the county, Mahsen trounced all and emerged as an academic giant.
The 16-year-old girl could not hold back her tears of joy when she got the pleasant news. To her, it was a blessing.
“I cried a lot, I couldn’t believe it. It was a miracle, thanks to God,” she said.
Mahsen said it wasn’t an easy journey as she comes from a humble background.
She was able to continue with her education through a scholarship program from the county government.
Mahsen said she will forever be grateful to anyone who supported her education. Without their help, she doesn’t think she could have performed better.
“The victory is not mine alone but to all the people who supported me. They contributed a lot to my success,” she said.
Mahsen said she spent days and nights reading and finishing the assignments on time.
She said her success is all about commitment, perseverance and pushing herself out of her comfort zone.
Mahsen said she had to sacrifice her free time for education, sleeping late and waking up early.
She wants to join Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and pursue medicine and become an oncologist
.
Mahsen also dreams of studying abroad to further her studies in medicine.
She said all she aspires is to give back to the community and becoming a doctor is the only way she can serve and make them proud.
Mahsen is the lastborn in a family of three children. Her mother is from Kwale.
The top girl said she was weak in languages and loved science and mathematics subjects.
She got all the subjects clean A except English where she had a B.
Mahsen scored 413 marks in her KCPE exams. It was a public school.
During her high school life, she served as the Deputy President of students and was a fan of science congress programs where she won various competitions.
Mahsen said she wants to be a beacon of hope that anyone can be successful regardless of their family background or who they are.
“I would like to encourage girls and other people that if you work hard and observe a high sense of discipline and stay close to God, you will become what you want,” she said.
The mother Saumu Juma described her daughter as a disciplined and determined girl.
She said Mahsen never took a break from learning and she always had books with her.
“My daughter used to read a lot. It doesn’t matter whether it was a school holiday or not, she revised,” said Juma.
She said as a parent she is always there to ensure that mahsen is raised with good principles and virtues.
Matuga Girls Deputy Headteacher Winnie Goa said Mahsen was the most disciplined student in the school.
Goa said there is no single day Mahsen was involved in any indiscipline case and she used to be ever busy with her studies.
The Deputy Headteacher hailed her good grades adding that Mahsen has made the school proud and asked other students to emulate her.
This year, Matuga Girls also produced seven A minus, 22 B+, 33 B, 57 B-, 64 C+, 62 C, 18 C-, 6 D+, and a D resulting in a school mean score of 7.38, a deviation of 0.51 if compared with the 2021 mean score of 7.89.
Kwale High had A- 17, B+ 53, B 92, B- 94, C+ 61, C 20 and C-5 with a mean score of 8.4 compared to last year’s 7.4 making it the best school in Kwale county.
