It took a lot of hard work, determination and sacrifice for little-known Nyambaria High School in Nyamira County to top the 2022 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination in the country.

The school posted a mean score of 10.89, making it the top school countrywide in results released on Friday by Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu.

The school management, teachers, parents, candidates as well as the community surrounding the institution say the success being celebrated now is as a result of many years of hard work.

In the 2021 KCSE, the school scored a mean grade of 9.2.

Established in 1966, Nyambaria is a Seventh-Day Adventist school.

It was made a national school a decade ago and has its students drawn from around the country.

It has a student population of 2,700.

Although last year’s performance was equally good, it is this year’s results that have shocked the whole country.

The little-known school located deep in a village in Magombo ward, Kitutu Masaba constituency, beat traditional academic giants to emerge top in the country.

Its remarkable achievement saw the least candidate score a B plain.

Twenty eight students got straight A, 383 scored A minus while 76 scored B plus. Only one student got a B.

For the school, theirs has been a steady rise since 2017.

In 2020, the school got a mean grade of 8.75.

In 2019, the mean score was 8.01 while in 2018, it was 6.87. In 2017, the school’s mean grade was 7.69.

Chief Principal Charles Onyari attributed the exemplary performance to hard work, commitment from both teaching and non-teaching staff and, above all, God’s grace.

The school management also engaged learners regularly, laying emphasis on discipline and hard work.

“We worked for this. There is no shortcut to success. Our boys were good and we knew since form two when they recorded a mean of 11.2 in a standard internal exam. We are proud of the boys and we cannot also forget the support that we have been receiving from our SDA Church,” Mr Onyari said.

Apart from the school’s academic progress, it has benefited from modern infrastructure.

Former Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i conducted several fundraisers to support infrastructural development at the institution.

Board of Management chair Dr Lazarus Momanyi Okioma thanked the entire community for their support and prayers.

George Momanyi, who scored an A plain of 83 points, wants to pursue clinical medicine at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

“Our classes officially ended at 10pm but some of us would go up to 1am reading. We would start our days at 4am. We believed in ourselves and here we are,” George said.

Oseko Lewis was the best student in the school with 84 points.