Not Too Late for Education: Nancy’s Second Chance and a Community’s New Dream

When Nancy Asiya walked into Form One at Akoret Girls’ High School in January 2024, she was not just joining a new class. She was stepping back into a dream she had carried for 16 years.

At 36, Nancy is older than every other student in her class. She is also a mother of six.

On her first day, some of the girls assumed she was a member of staff.

“They thought I was the matron,” Nancy says, laughing at the memory. “They could not imagine someone my age coming back to school.”

But Nancy had not come to the newly opened school in Kamurio, Baringo County to watch from the sidelines. She had come to learn. To finish what she started. And to prove to herself, and to the girls around her, that it is never too late to return to school.

For years, Nancy had lived with the pain of an education cut short.

Like many girls in her community, she started school late. Even so, she was a bright learner and moved quickly, completing primary school in six years instead of eight. In 2008, she joined secondary school with hope for the future. But by Form Two, that future had begun to slip away.

Pressure to marry, combined with the responsibilities placed on girls at home, forced her out of school. At just 20 years old, Nancy got married before completing her basic education.

“I always felt my life would have been different if I had finished school,” she says. “That stayed with me for a very long time.”

The dream of going back never left. But for years, it remained just that. A dream.

The nearest secondary school was far away. She had children to care for. And in a community where girls often drop out early and marry young, the idea of a married woman and mother returning to the classroom felt almost impossible.

So Nancy carried on with life, but she made herself a promise: her children would have the chance she lost.

Then, in 2023, something changed.

Through World Vision’s then Kenya Big Dream programme, now the Big Dream to End Child Marriage, Akoret Girls’ High School was established in Kamurio village. It was the first girls’ secondary school in Akoret Sub-County, bringing education closer to girls who had previously faced long distances and limited options.

For many girls, the new school meant a chance to continue learning. For Nancy, it meant something even more personal: the possibility of going back.

Because she was among the few women in the area who had reached secondary school, the community selected Nancy to serve as Chair of the interim Board of Management as the school was being set up. As she sat in meetings and listened to discussions about girls’ education, a question kept returning to her.

“If I am encouraging girls to stay in school, why can’t I go back too?”

It was not a simple decision. 

Nancy had to ask for support from her husband and in-laws. She had to explain why this mattered to her and why it was worth trying, even now. The conversations were not easy, and the idea was met with hesitation.

But Nancy kept asking.

Eventually, her family agreed.

So in January 2024, 16 years after leaving school, Nancy put on a school uniform again and enrolled in Form One at Akoret Girls’ High School.

Today, her life follows a rhythm few would find easy. She attends lessons during the week, joins evening prep, and works to keep up with her studies alongside girls young enough to be her daughters. On weekends, she travels home to spend time with her children before returning to school in time for Monday classes. During the school week, her mother-in-law helps care for the family.

“Being a mother and a boarding student at the same time is not easy,” Nancy says. “But this is something I decided to do for myself and for my children.”

She is determined to complete Form Four and continue her education beyond secondary school. Her hope is to study project management or business management, fields she believes will equip her to lead and serve her community.

But Nancy’s return to school is already doing something powerful long before she sits for her final exams.

It is changing what girls in Akoret believe is possible.

In a place where many girls have grown up seeing child marriage as the path laid out for them, Nancy’s presence in the classroom tells a different story. It says that education matters. It says that interrupted dreams can still be picked up again. And it says that a woman’s future does not end because she left school, got married, or became a mother.

“By coming back to school at her age, Nancy is showing girls that education is important,” says Abigael Kukat, Principal of Akoret Girls’ High School. “She is encouraging them to stay focused and build their future through education.”

That message is especially powerful in Nancy’s own home.

Her only daughter, who is currently in Grade 9 at Kamurio Junior Secondary School, hopes to join Akoret Girls’ High School next year. Nancy dreams of the day they might study at the same school, mother and daughter, both pursuing the education she once thought she had lost forever.

“Studying together with my daughter would mean so much to me,” she says. “I want her to see that education has no expiry date.”

Nancy knows the road ahead will not be easy. There are school costs to meet, family responsibilities to manage and lessons to keep up with. There are days when the balancing act feels heavy. But each morning she chooses to keep going, carrying not only her books, but the weight of the years she lost, and the hope of what education can still make possible.

Her story is about more than one woman returning to school. It is about what happens when opportunity is brought closer to girls. It is about the doors that open when a safe school exists within reach. And it is about the quiet courage it takes to walk back through a door that life once forced shut.

For Nancy, Akoret Girls’ High School is the place where she has begun to reclaim a future she never stopped longing for. 

“It is not too late for me,” she says. “And it is not too late for any girl who wants to learn.”

By David Nderitu, Communications Specialist, Big Dream to End Child Marriage, World Vision Kenya