I had to work hard to be crowned top in the school

By Tobby Otum

Umm Kulthum, a student at Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Secondary & Technical School, said she was forced to spend the night reading to be crowned top student during the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) 2022 national examinations.

She insisted she had to burn the midnight oil to score 83 points during the KCSE 2022 national examinations.

‘I really worked hard to score and attain the best grade in the KCSE 2022 national examinations,’ she added.

Umm Kulthum said she had a lot of expectation to do well after working hard.

She was addressing the media at the school compound in Nyali constituency, Mombasa county. Her mother is a former student at the same school.

The top student said she has plans to pursue medicine and in future to specialize in cardiology saying that she had not expected to get such marks in the KCSE examinations despite working hard for the examinations.

‘Despite being demoralized it was a driving force to work hard to attain the best results in the KCSE examinations,’ she pointed out.

On his part, the school principal Khamis Mohamed told journalists the KCSE 2022 national examinations candidates were unfortunately unlucky.

He added it was regrettable that the students only managed to be in school for six months due to the COVID 19 pandemic.

‘The 2022 candidates happened to be in schools for six months, but despite the circumstances we appreciate the national examinations results,’ he said.

The school principal told journalists their administration was forced to do a crash program to catch up with the syllabus.

Khamis added they were forced to go into revision classes up to late hours.