Education has been one of the most profitable ventures in the country hence the mushrooming of private schools all over in the country to fill the gap left by the limited resources in public institutions.
This was the field Christopher Situma Khaemba decided to venture into when he retired from public service as, you guessed that right, a teacher.
Khaemba joined hands with others and founded the Nova Pioneer Group of Schools and on Wednesday, December 11, 2019, they opened their sixth school in Kenya apart from having seven of them in South Africa.
According to the institution’s website, The schools include Nova Pioneer Primary Athi River, Nova Pioneer Primary Tatu City, Nova Pioneer Boys Secondary Tatu City, Nova Pioneer Girls Secondary Tatu city, Nova Pioneer Girls Secondary Eldoret and the Newly opened Ksh1.6 Billion Nova Pioneer Boys secondary Eldoret in Kenya.
In South Africa, Khaemba and his colleagues own Nova Pioneer Boksburg, Nova Pioneer Midrand, Nova Pioneer North Riding, Nova Pioneer Ormonde, Nova Pioneer Ormonde Secondary, Nova Pioneer Paulshof and Nova Pioneer Ruimsig.
Before being involved in matters of education, Khaemba was an officer and pilot with the Kenya Air Force a job that he quit in 1984 to become a teacher.
After making the drastic turn from the military into academia, Khaemba joined the teaching staff at Alliance High School, where he would go on to become a Mathematics and Physics teacher for the following14 years.
During this time he rose to the level of principal.
Solomon Njuguna, a former student at Alliance stated that they had nicknamed him ‘sodium’ due to his no-nonsense approach to learning.
In 1995 Kahemba was appointed by the government as the Principal of Friends School Kamusinga to overhaul the declining standards in the school and within three years he had instituted changes that helped the school regain its prominence as an academic giant and power-house of co-curricular activities in Western Province and nationally.
He would return to Alliance in 1998 as the principal.
Khaemba would later move to Johannesburg, South Africa in 2008 after he was appointed as the founding Dean of the African Leadership Academy.
In January of 2012, the former airforce man was appointed Education Advisor in the Office of the Prime Minister of Kenya a position he held until April 2013, when a new Government was formed, and the office of the Prime Minister abolished.
Christoper Khaemba teamed up with Oliver Sabot, Oliver Rothschild and Chinezi Chijioke in 2015 to establish the Nova Pioneer in Kenya.
The first Nova Pioneer School opened in January 2016 with 128 boys and was modelled on South Africa’s African Leadership Academy.
The Nove Pioneer schools offer Kenya’s school curriculum that is enriched with innovation and entrepreneurship modules and practice.
