Kapsabet High School

History

The school was founded in 1925 as the Government African School (GAS). It is one of the oldest high schools in the country.

It has made huge developments since its start, and is now sailing at greater heights. It was upgraded to national status in 2011 with Kipchumba Maiyo as the Chief Principal.

It has a long history with the first person getting admitted to the school being Elijah arap Cheruiyot Chepkwony – Adm 001. The school is partitioned into two; the old school and the modern school. The old school has been made to be a private primary school, Kapsabet High Primary School . The primary school is performing well in the KCPE examinations each and every year.

The first school bus was bought in 1985 and is still in use up to date and usually referred to by the students as ‘boneshaker’. The school has about 5 school buses used by the school and also hired by interested persons.

Its well elucidated history is well shown in the school’s magazine alias ‘the trumpet.’

KCSE performance

The school has had good performance in the national examinations, Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE). During the 2013 exam the school was ranked fourth nationally. In the 2014 examination it was ranked second nationally after Moi High School-Kabarak.

In the 2015 form one admission cycle, it received over 60000 applications and accepted about 300 students.

In the 2015 examination, it had a mean score of 11.16 out of 12, with over 70 students getting the maximum grade of A-plain. It started humbly but has had the graph of its performance always improving right from 2010 when Kipchumba Maiyo entered as principal.

The form 4s each year has their own group name and target;

2013 – Titans

2014 – Olympians

2015 – Vikings

Currently in 2016 – SPURS

The Spurs have a target of 12.00 this year up from 11.80 last year. The school has a strong Christian dependence and the Spurs’ theme song is ‘How great thou Art’ which they always sing in the school Sunday Service. Their slogan is ‘OBTULIT INMALCULATUM’ (Latin) which means “This is For Us”. The armament is set well in the arsenal and they believe in victory ever, defeat never.

Management

The school's principal is Kipchumba Maiyo and the Board of Governors is chaired by former army General Augustine Cheruiyot.

The school administration consists also of a prefects’ body of about 80 prefects. They are headed by the supreme captain assisted by five deputy school captains in charge of:

Ø Academics

Ø Welfare

Ø Boarding

Ø Environment and sanitation

Ø Administration

The school has put a honours’ board for the former school captains and the current 2015/2016 Supreme captain is a young man named Kuony Yien Nyuon, of Sudanese Origin. The six captains alias ‘THE BIG SIX’ , each have fully furnished and official offices in the school administration block just like the HODs. Students forward their issues there and get assistance. The other big sectors are also under the captain in charge of:

ü Entertainment

ü Information technology and Links.

ü Scholarships and Exchange Programmes

ü Reception and Protocol

ü Games etc.

The prefects enjoy various privileges such as not adhering to the MBR(movement by running rule), they have a special table in the dining complex, special sleeping areas, they are not inspected during school Saturday inspections, among many other privileges. The normal prefects wear light blue shirts instead of the normal white ones, navy blue cardigans and blazers instead of the normal maroon ones. The ‘BIG SIX’ wear the same except for a convectional blue and red tie instead of red, specially tailored blazers with winsome decorations on the ribbon with a colour of their own choice.

The prefecture is the one which runs the school

Academics

On weekdays, students wake up at 5:00am and the non-prefect Form 1s perform morning duties. Dawn preps start at 6am after their breakfast at 5:30am. There is a Math hour each and every day after lunch as from 1:30pm to 2:00am hence the school being a powerhouse in Mathematics. It has won all Mathematics contests it attended in 2016 and was the best school in Mathematics in KCSE 2015 with a mean of 11.5.

The school has an ultramodern resource center and classes are fitted with whiteboards and projectors each for all the lessons are modernized.

The Form 4s have a tight academic program that lets them be busy always.

Benchmarkings are common in Kapsabet due to its consistent and persistent performance in national examinations.

There are 25 classes with Forms 2 to 4 having 6 streams and Form 1 having 7 streams. The school population is about 1400 students with teachers being around 70. The teacher to student ratio is 1:20 which gives maximum support from the teachers.

Boarding

The school has 19 dorms which are further grouped to nine houses. The house basis is used for Inter-house academic contests, games, house parties, meals and many other activities. The school is a state of the art institution full of amazing works of architecture. The new 360-bed dormitory, Koitalel Dorm, a three storey building, is a contribution of the alumni in the school’s development. The dorms have hot showers, ironing and laundry bays, modern cubicles and many other amazing things.

The food served is of high quality. Some of the meals provide consist of meat steak, cabbages, boiled and eggs, kales, ugali, white or brown rice, potatoes, thick tea, mursik, beans among many other normal meals. The students enjoy their meals and don’t que for meals but rather each student belongs to a table consisting of about 15 members. They find food on the tables, the table leader serves and they make a joint prayer. Running to the dining hall is described in the school’s slang as ‘subez’ meaning ushamba in Kiswahili and ‘un-civilization’, in English, thus students don’t run to the dining hall or scram at the school canteens. Five meals are provided which consist of; breakfast, teabreak, lunch, supper and academic-cocoa and quarter loaves at 9pm after their evening preps.

A new 816 bed capacity dorm is being built by the school. The mega-project is a luxurious one costing over 150 million shillings.

Notable alumni

With an alumni network of more than 10,000 students, Kapsabet has produced alumni in different fields including top leaders in Kenya. Some of its notable alumni include Kenya's political elite.

Aerial view of the school campus