Eleven years ago, a 9-year-old South Sudanese village boy arrived at Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya. He didn’t have any money. He couldn’t speak or write or read English.

Generally, he was just another refugee fleeing conflict in South Sudan. However, little did anyone know why he really left his village in Akop, former Warrap State.

This is none other than Tito Yak Kuol, the South Sudanese student whose Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education test results have made South Sudanese proud.

A student of one of the best secondary schools in Kenya, Alliance High School, Yak was ranked among the best students in the nationwide exams whose results were announced few days ago. He garnered mean score of 84 points, a grade A Plain.

Yak scored A Plain in 7 subjects: Biology, Chemistry, Kiswahili, English, Mathematics, Business Studies, and Christian Religious Education, and A Minus in Physics.

This is the second time the young man has made headlines in the foreign land – in both cases, for the good reasons.

Out of 776,214 pupils who sat the primary school leaving exams, KCPE, in 2010, he emerged number 4 nationwide, a news which caused heavy traffic jam on Nairobi’s Uhuru highway as both Kenyan and South Sudanese communities held him up high and ran around in jubilation.

In an interview with the Kenya’s NTV, Yak attributed his exceptional performance to ‘hard work’ and his teachers.

“It’s a result of hard work I had. I had some of the best teachers in the school….and amazing group discussions,” said an elated Yak.

According to Alliance High School policy, only a small number of pupils who excel in the primary school leaving examinations gets admitted to the prestigious school.

The 2010 KCPE top 10 students, including Yak, went to the school. This kept him on his toes.

“Going to Alliance as Position 4, I had to maintain or improve on my position. I had to keep working hard.  There was a point one would top the class; next time, you are nowhere because the rest are doing their best to beat you,” he explained.

The ambitious young man who comes from a family of seven says his brothers were also an inspiration.

“I’ve seen my brothers working so hard [at school]. I developed that spirit of working hard,” he added.

The academic Journey

After he expressed his idea of going to school, his older brothers took him to Eastern Equatoria, with an intent to proceed to Uganda where he would study. Hence, they ‘sneaked’ him out of the country.

By then, it was difficult to get travel documents because the then region of southern Sudan was unstable. Some travelers would cross over to Uganda illegally. Crossings were carried out at night through ‘rat paths’ far away from the main border points.

While in Gulu, there was a change of plan. “We sneaked back to some part of the southern South Sudan,” Yak recollected.

A few days later, they traveled to Kenya by a UN truck. The imaginably arduous journey they made through dangerous bad dirt roads lasted about three weeks.

Upon arrival, Yak immediately enrolled in one of the primary schools in the camp as 1^st Grader. Armed with passion and enthusiasm for education, he took his classes seriously despite the bad living conditions there.

Refugees solely rely on the food rations distributed fortnightly by the United Nations Refugee Agency. This is because the area climate is ill-suited for agriculture. Thus; there is no way any refugee would supplement the food ration through farming.

The ratio mostly comprises of a couple of kilograms of maize grains, a cup of beans, little cooking oil, and table salt.

Besides, life in the semi-arid desert environment of Kakuma is generally rather challenging. The area has always been full of problems: dust storms, high temperatures, and other hardships. The average daytime temperature is constantly above 40 degrees Celsius.

All this makes it unfavorable for learning.

Nothing can stop a determined soul, they say. Despite the camp’s conditions, Yak enjoyed the learning. He never missed a class.

At first, he found Kiswahili difficult to learn because majority of his classmates were South Sudanese. In his class, many students did not pursue the subject.

“They believed that Kiswahili could not be managed in school [by South Sudanese],” he said.

However, Yak broke the barrier. Just like the other subjects, he put his heart into it. In both national examinations, he scored A Plain in Kiswahili.

Three years later, he relocated to Nairobi where he joined Uthiru Genesis Day and Boarding School until he completed his primary school studies in 2010.

In the Kenyan education system, primary school level takes 8 years.

But it took Yak only 7 years to complete primary school. He tackled two classes – 4 and 5 – within one year (2008).

“Based on our critical assessment, he was too bright for class 4, and when we gave him class 5 exams, he scored highly,” Mr James Gichoya Wahome, the school head teacher revealed.

Alliance High School

440 marks landed him a place at the prestigious school. But lack funds almost interrupted his studies. Thanks to a Kenyan national named Major Michael Kariuki who offered to support Yak financially.

Yak said: “He paid my school fees. He was also a father-figure to me. He gave me advice that I did not have before, because I never stayed with my parents.”

Future career

Yak wishes to study petroleum engineering at Yale University, one of the best higher learning institutions in the United States. According to 2015 rankings, the Connecticut-based institution is the 15^th best school in the world.

Yak’s July 2014 visit to the school is the rootage of his dream to study there. He was a Form 3 (11^th Grader).

He participated in the Yale Young Global Scholar Program, an initiative which gives students room to flourish in a new learning environment and to explore new academic interests.

“That was my best experience in high school,” he added.

If supported by well-wishers or friends or government, Yak could become a great resource in the South Sudan’s oil sector once done with his dream course.