“Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.” – Nelson Mandela
Clifford Chianga Oluoch is a compassionate human being who is guided by the human first principle. A visit to his office for this interview exposed his humility too.
One would expect that a principal of a luxurious academy of Regis caliber would be sitting in a luxurious office with servants at his service. Definitely not Clifford. He sits in a beautiful office covered with love, peace and compassion.
“When I get to school in the morning, I don’t stay in my office. The first thing I do is that I stand outside and greet students one by one as they get to class. I don’t hold a cane in my hand. We talk, I crack jokes with them and some of them don’t want to go back to class,” he says
Small act but as Clifford says, the children love it and he has learnt a lot from it. He further states that sometimes he has seen kids, some even older and detected that they are not alright. The moment he reaches out, they break down.
“It is not Chemistry or Physics. It is from a human perspective. When I joined Regis School, the catering team asked me the time they could serve me breakfast and lunch and when I said I will eat with the kids in the dining, they were surprised,” Clifford states
According to him, principal is just a title while Clifford is a person. He wants everybody who associates with him in school to see Clifford and not the title. So when he engages with students about the challenges they are facing in school or at home, he is able to come up with amicable solutions.
Indeed he is a happy educator and if he were to meet his maker today, he would proudly say that he has lived his purpose.
“After everything is said and done I’ll tell God, this is the purpose you gave me and this is what I have returned. God has a purpose for all of us here on earth. Find it and perfect it,” the educator notes
For the 35 years he has been in teaching practice, 22 in international curriculum, 10 in local curriculum, and 3 as an untrained teacher, his inspiration has been life.
“To me, anything in life is already inspirational. When you see a flower blooming, just watch life. That transformation in people and especially the kids under my care as an educator, is what I live for. I want to see them change and become better than I found them,” he notes
That aspect of transformation in life has seen him work with street kids, for his desire has always been to see them leave the streets and go back to school, or engage in worthy ventures that will make them desirable people.
Just a few days after we had this interview, this very beautiful library at Deep Sea slums that Clifford set up during the Covid period and that was really serving the kids in the informal settlement, was burnt down.
“Ashes to ashes….. We rise. Diego Maradona the Argentine coach at the World Cup 2010 uttered the words after Argentina lost 4 nil to Germany: “each goal was like a knife in my heart.” Today, watching the library at Deep Sea in flames was “like a knife into my heart” – extremely painful. Each of those donated books have a history and sentimentalism attached to them. Each book is a story, a library within a library,” he said in a post on Facebook. A thorn in the heart but he lives to face another day.
Milestones
Speaking on the milestones he has made in his journey, he says that, through his experience with both the international and local curriculum, he has been able to connect the world of the haves to that of the have nots.
As the educator notes, currently at Regis School, they have a community service program at Githogoro slum, which happens to be next to the school. Through the program, they have adopted two schools – Star Kid School and The Brilliant Academy which goes up to grade 5.
“Adopted means we work with them,” he notes. Every Friday, 10-15 students from Brilliant academy spend the whole day at Regis School in their respective classes. This, according to the principle, is to enable them to see a different world from the one they are used to so that their minds can open up to possibilities.
“Every Saturday we have co-curricular activities that include swimming and coding and we have students from Brilliant Academy join in. Our own F2 students spend two to three days conducting holiday camps at Brilliant academy. These to me are milestone,” Clifford notes
The educator’s hope is that more privileged schools will adopt underprivileged schools. That in his view will help bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots.
Over the holidays, he duplicated the Regis school camp project at Deep Sea slums and as he notes, the kids have not stopped talking about it for they had never seen anything like it before. They now look forward to the camp every holiday, and as Clifford states, this has helped reduce begging for they are fed.
Education as a catalyst for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Commenting on the state of Education (SDG 4), Clifford notes that, education has always lagged behind because innovation has always been fronted.
“We are in technological error and how technology came in and revolutionized things, was so fast till the world was struggling to get software engineers. University had not reached that level of training software engineers,” he points out
In addition he notes, education was so focused on academic results that non-academic people were forgotten. According to him, the first cohort of special needs educators graduated fifteen years ago.
“You can imagine before then, kids with special needs were just getting beaten and being made to repeat classes. My point is that somehow education has always lagged behind and unfortunately, innovation has never been a part of education,” Clifford notes
Looking at Kenya as it is in the transition from 8-4-4 and CBC, he notes that unfortunately the measure was taken due to the increasing number of cheating in the exams. To which he notes that, the unfortunate cheating in exam circumstances happened since so much focus was on exam results.
Research, he says, is also another area that is hardly invested in. “We need professors to come to nursery schools and research on the psychology of children. Progressively, we need to get them involved in writing text books for kids.”
Additionally, his hope is that the ministry of education will analyze the connection between schools and universities and join the dots. This he says will kill the culture of silos that are currently at Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and the ministry itself.
“When we get the unifying factor between schools and universities, then we have that ball of energy that propels this country to the next level,” he notes
The role of education in development
When you get to a point where you can read, write and calculate, a different world opens up completely. According to Clifford, education is like a road being eliminated and the lights showing. This as he says, education has been able to achieve.
“Once you have seen the path, it is for you to do whatever you wish to do with the path,” he states
When it comes to some of the Sustainable Development Goals, Clifford has a feeling that politics sometimes trifles crucial matters, for strong policy papers are made but implementation is not done. This he notes happens because politicians hijack the process. The systems are also not strong in his view.
He remembers vividly during the Moi error a motion was tabled that writing bouncing cheques should be criminalized, but the Members of Parliament laughed and shot it down and it was therefore never criminalized.
“So if you have people who have been elected and have reached that particular level, they are the ones who will criminalize the laws and policies. Eventually, your goals cannot be implemented because we have a stumbling block which is always political issues,” Clifford states
Definitely A Perfect Score
Books they say live to tell the tales of the great. Clifford in his greatness and capacity has a masterpiece in the form of a book titled “A Perfect Score.” This is the first of his four books and is in the form of ten short stories and nine vineyards, which are a collection of excerpts about his life, from his other three books.
“In this book, there are stories of me as a teacher, as a philanthropist, as a student in different places – there are stories about me and my dad, my family… generally a cocktail of stories about my life,” he notes
Clifford notes that publishing this book that has a roller coaster of emotions, has given him the energy to do the next book as always is the case for most authors. In A Perfect Score, readers will have a clear picture of his philosophy in life and education and get to understand where he draws his passion from.
The author has three favorite chapters in the book. One is “Clifford meet Akinyi” which was his journey in the maternity ward when his daughter was born. He notes, through the experience, he came to appreciate women who go through with pregnancy.
“The second is “the last dance”, which highlights the journey of my father with cancer. When my mother passed on, I just received a phone call but for my dad, I was with him on a daily basis for seven consecutive months. The only thing I regret is him not having written a book about his journey on earth,” Clifford says
The third he says is “Forever Your Teacher Riah,” a story of a girl Clifford met when she was four years old and watched her grow through the misfortune of losing her dad. By the time Clifford moved from primary to secondary school after eight years, she was 12.
A lot happened and he watched her grow. To him, the chapter summarizes what a teacher is. The advantage of seeing students grow.
His parting shot…
“Teaching is much more than giving lessons and teaching students to attain grades. It is about human interactions. It is these human relationships that I explore in my memoir that spans my life as a teacher. So keep it human always.” He concludes
