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KCSE 2025: How boardroom challenges inspired 79-year-old candidate
23rd November, 2025 12:32 PM
As the final Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) scripts are packed away, a 79-year-old farmer-turned-board member is betting that his results will open doors to champion farmers’ voices where it matters most: the boardroom.
Born in Nyandarua in 1946, Samwel Wainaina says that being appointed to the East African Farmers Federation board ignited his thirst for education after missing joining high school shortly after independence.
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Speaking on Sunday, November 23, 2025, at Nakuru Boys’ High School, where he sat for his examinations as an adult candidate, he said that he hopes to push through to university to pursue community development that will equip him with skills to help his community back home.
He says that after completing his primary level, his parents could not afford to send him to Nyandarua High School due to their squatter status at the white settler farm.
Wainaina narrates that at the time he was to join high school and his parents had borrowed some money for fees, he had to forego the money to facilitate the settlement of their family in the land the government had allocated.
“My father asked me to choose between my education and land; I had no choice but to surrender the money to enable payment of the settlement fee for our family,” he told K24 Digital.
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Casual work to fend
He says that he went into casual work thereafter to fend for himself and, after several years, ventured into farming in Laikipia.
“When we set up a farm to raise cattle, I started to have conversations with farmers on how to raise the quality breeds, and that is how I ended up in the Kenya National Farmers Federation (KENAFF) through our association with livestock producers,” Wainaina recalls.
In quick succession, he rose in status from being a member of KENAFF to the East Africa Farmers Federation as a council member and finally as a board member of the regional body.
The challenges of boardroom negotiations and engagements proved to be a challenge to him, which pushed him to sit for his KCSE to enhance his capabilities.
His children took the role to tutor him as he prepared for his examinations at the adult centre at Nakuru Boys High School.
Mary Njeri, granddaughter of Wainaina, a business analyst and a master’s student, said that they have been extending support to him to undertake tuition and exercises to ensure that he could catch up with the syllabus.
