Felix Kimathi (pictured far-right) is a former pupil at Muthambi Boys School in Kenya, and has maintained close links with the institution's Scottish partner Drummond Community High School. He has recently started college, and here tells us a little of what life is like for a Journalism student there at the foot of the jobs ladder.
In Kenya, college is expensive. Unlike public universities, colleges get little support from the government, so students pay a lot of money. In my case, I pay SH 50,000 (£385) for tuition per 3-month term.
At college one has to choose between living in a hostel, renting a house nearby, or if your home is near you can stay there. I chose to live in hostels since it is cheaper. I am collected every day at 6:00am and taken back at 5:30pm by a school bus at a total cost of SH 32,000 (£2,450) per term.
Courses in colleges are good since they train workers. Even though the syllabus is hard, there are friendly and understanding lecturers. There is a mostly free environment in which to discipline oneself, but many perish.
Among the subjects I am taking are: public relations, communication skills, radio production, journalism, video editing, newspaper writing, computing, both English and Kiswahili for journalism, features and media ethics.
[img_assist|nid=3511|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=139]The course deals with all activities of a media person. Most of the time I am in a radio or TV studio recording or editing something, or out and about working with a video camera.
At the end I will be a journalist by profession. I have the passion and I love the job, so even though there is stiff competition and corruption In the media industry I believe I will make it. But my first happiness will be to get an attachment to a good media house.
Next year I will record a programme on youths' views about HIV/AIDS, and will send it to Drummond so students there can hear their Kenyan classmates talk about this monster.