South Sudanese refugee is top KCSE student in Turkana West

By Baluu Wol Makuach – KANERE Volunteer Writer, June 2021

Maketh Alier Deng, the top performer in the 2020 KCSE Exams in Kakuma Refugee Camp scored an amazing overall grade of A – (Minus). It is the second time since 2010 that Kakuma Refugee Secondary School (KRSS) achieved such a success.

Maketh arrived in Kakuma from South Sudan in 2014 following the outbreak of a civil war that had left thousands of people dead. He started his education at Kadugli Primary School in Class 6. Maketh had never heard of Kiswahili as a subject before, but he had two years to learn it. In 2016, he sat for his KCPE exams 2 years later scoring 318 marks out of the possible 500 marks and scored a grade of D (Plain) in the Kiswahili subject.

In his KCSE results, following hard work, Maketh scored B (plain) in Kiswahili, which makes him the best candidate in Kakuma and Turkana West. “Life will not come to you straight. It comes in a rough way, and you have to walk through it,” said Maketh.

The improvement in Alier’s Kiswahili subject was first perceived to be the result of studying in a decent school outside Kakuma, but Alier was quick to deny that, “I studied and finished my studies in the camp. I never had the privilege to travel or study outside Kakuma”.

After enduring the horrors of the South Sudan civil war, Maketh was able to put his past behind him through hard work and the help of his teacher, Mr. Osore, who told him: “Don’t let your past determine what will happen to you in the future. Your undesired grades do not reflect what your future will be.”

Mr. Osore emphasized that the outcomes of a good grades in high school or at the higher level is as a result of ones hard work, commitment and vision.

“As a student, you should use your past to improve your future. So you look what your past is, you think of correcting your wrong to right your future.” Says Mr. Osore

According to Maketh, his masterpiece calendar helped him mentally focus. He plays football too as part of his Physical Exercise which challenges the myth that sports can affect one’s performance negatively in school. “As a student, you also need to be involved in other curriculum activities, because some of the students have not discovered their talents because they focus so much on their studies. You need that free time to refresh.

“You must take sport practices as well as your education seriously. Sports make you access different ideas from different part of the world.”

“You cannot be deterred by one obstacle in the school. You need to learn how to solve your own problems in the course of your life so that you will reach your educational goals. Anything that can make you a better person in the future.”

In 2020, with a total of 662 candidates, Kakuma Refugee Secondary School recorded the highest registered candidates in one school across Kakuma Refugee camp and in the country-at-large.

Despite the bright performances of Maketh Alier Deng, the school’s overall performances proved to many that online and phase learning during the COVID-19 pandemic period was not enough to help many attain good grades after the school averaged the mean score of 3.293. Maketh was the only one to score an A- (Minus), two students B+ (Plus), and six others B (Plain). A good number of students had scored Cs. 11 students scored C+ (Plus), 24 students C (Plain), and 56 others C- (Minus).

The Ds registered were as follow: 108 scored D+ (Plus), 185 D (Plain), and 186 D- (Minus). 30 students scored Es.

In 2015, KRSS had a total of 1662 students, but by 2020, and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the school registered 3889 students, of which 71.5% were boys and 28.5% girls.