She is the best teacher in Kenya

Her language flow is smooth and one experiences her motherly demeanour as soon as you start to chat with her. She is soft-spoken, a listener and is empathetic.

She talks of a fulfilled career life, and for the 19 years she has been a teacher at Pangani Girls High School, her record of performance is unbeatable.

Only four of her 48 students scored below grade B Plus in English in last years KCSE examinations. And it was no fluke. She has been consistent in posting impressive results.

Female candidates

Posting a mean of 10.47 points in English by 275 students, (the largest number of female candidates in the country), it was one of the best scores for any subject.

The results were just one of the reasons Mrs Alice Kwamboka Omari was named the best teacher in the country in this year’s secondary school head teachers’ conference in Mombasa recently.

She beat about 60,000 teachers to this award. And now, she savours the victory satisfied that it was never a mistake to kill her dream of becoming a lawyer and turn to teaching. Earlier, last year, she was Nairobi province’s best teacher.

“I wanted to emulate my A-Levels English teacher, Mrs Attyang. She spoke queen’s English with remarkable ease, was neat and had a good family,” Mrs Omari says of her career shift at Kipsigis Girls High School.

The journey to the top was competitive. It started at school level in February where she was selected to compete for the Nairobi North district slot. She was second.

But at the provincial level, she emerged the winner. And when the secondary school heads met in Mombasa, she was again pooled among eight other contenders, one from each province. It is from here that she romped home with the prize.

Great honour

“It was a great honour. It motivated me to even work harder. I dedicate the award to my colleagues and school administration for the support,” she told the Nation in an interview.

A holder of a Masters degree in education administration, Mrs Omari heads the languages and library department, a position that puts her on the decision making table at the school.

“We work as a team. But one of my secrets is to cultivate a relationship with the students. They must feel both of you are working towards a goal,” she reveals.

She has never worked in any other school, and in her words, contact with a large number of students has given her a wealth of experience.

“It is like working in three schools,” she says.

Admitting she loves perching at the top of whatever task she undertakes, the teacher sells her subject to students.

"They must know it is a very crucial subject. How they perform in it may mean how they perform in others,” she counsels.

A mother of three, Mrs Omari also inculcates the spirit of good performance in her children. Her first born, Herbert, scored an A at Starehe Boys Centre. He took up Actuarial Science at Jomo Kenyatta University. The others are still in primary school.

Born in Mochengo Village in Gucha District, Mrs Omari exhibited academic genius early in her life. She always topped her class at Mochengo Primary School and was in the cream of Ahero Girls where she went for secondary school in 1981.

She chose English and Literature at Kenyatta University, and was posted to Pangani Girls immediately after graduation.

After three years at the school, Mrs Omari drew a strategic plan that would see the school improve in her subject. At the time, students at the school were not very disciplined with many cases of sneaking out.

“I kept telling my students that discipline was key for them to succeed. We started getting results immediately,” she remembers.

In 1997, when she took over the languages department, the school scored 9.48 points (an average of B plain) in English. It has never gone below that, with 2006 recording the highest mean at 10.76 points (A-Minus).

As a medium of communication, English is compulsory in course choice and students who perform below grade C Plus may be forced to do a bridging course before they take up some courses.

And what does the future hold for her? “I have given talks to many national schools and interacted with many students.

“I think I can do well at shaping language policies at a higher level,” she says.