When Suheil Mkalla Mumba passed his KCSE examinations in 2023, his dream of becoming a doctor seemed closer than ever, and he was excited to be the first medic in his family, and the first in his vilage of Kombani in Kwale County.
Mkalla’s academic journey is a success story , from passing his KCPE examinations with 389 marks to scoring A- at Kwale High School after overcoming poverty struggles which hindered him from attending his dream school, Dr Aggrey Boys High School in Wundanyi.
“I always wanted to go to Dr Aggrey , but due to my parents’ financial status they could not afford to enrol me there. At the time, the County Government was only sponsoring students who had secured positions at national schools, but Dr Aggrey is an extra-county school. Our quickest option was Kwale High School and I joined Form 1 in 2020,” he said in an interview with a local media house.
Mkalla was lucky to receive county sponsorship at Kwale High, but he said that most of the times it was not enough to foot the entire school fee, which put a strain on his parents.
“I come from a humble background, and sometimes it is difficult for my parents to put food on the table for me and my five siblings,” he added.
His mother, Tatu Mohamed, implored well-wishers and sponsors to help assist them in paying the huge sum of KShs 490, 940 annual fees required for him to actualise his dream of being a doctor, as they simply could not come up with the funds on their own.
“We don’t have the capacity to help our son, and we are appealing to sponsors to come out and help him because studying medicine has been his dream since he was a young boy,” she said .
She recounted instances where Mkalla would promise her that he would be the family’s doctor, which she did not take seriously until he became dedicated to his studies in pursuit of his dream.
“He kept telling me,’ Mother I want to be a doctor, I want to treat people,’ countless times as a young boy , and when he grew up, he told me of his desire to be a neurosurgeon,” she shared.
Tatu shared they have sought funding from different avenues, applying for a Higher Education Loans Board(HELB) scholarship but the disbursement reflects after the student is well into the semester, and the family does not have enough to enrol Mkalla before the scholarship chips in.
Netizens have sympathized with the family, and decried the government’s defunding of HELB and introducing a new university funding model as it nows locks out students from lower-income backgrounds from pursuing their careers.
“Defunding HELB and that new university funding model that requires students to sijui “pass certain criteria” will see the rise of so many cases like this,” Justine Wanda lamented.
“Most of the intellectuals we see today are a result of the subsidized university fees and HELB. Fees could hardly reach 50,000 for government sponsored students. The new funding model is working in boardrooms but not in the universities. Many continuing students have dropped out,” another X user named Mukabana James opined.
“We are fighting for such. We want a country where anyone can access education in both elementary and higher education,” Icon Saeko commented.
A report by a local publication found that Egerton University’s medical training is the most expensive among Kenyan universities, with annual fees running upto Kshs 643, 940 for first year students.
