Starehe Boys' Centre and School

Starehe Boys' Centre and School (popularly known as "Starehe") is a partial-board, boys-only school in Nairobi, Kenya. The school was founded in 1959 by Dr. Geoffrey William Griffin, MBS, OBE, Geoffrey Gatama Geturo and Joseph Kamiru Gikubu. It started as a rescue centre. Starehe and Brookhouse School are the only African schools south of the Sahara and north of the Limpopo distinguished as Round Square members.

Starehe Boys' Centre and School educates at least 70% of its students free, and the rest at a reduced rate. This stems from its founding charter as a charitable school. School fees are paid on a means-tested basis, with substantial subsidies paid by the school, so that students from all walks of life are able to have a public school education that would otherwise be beyond their means.

The entrance process uses results from the national KCPE exams and prefers to award school places to those who show academic potential.

The school is governed by a Managing Committee chaired by Jimmy Mugerwa, Country Chairman of Kenya Shell and BP, the school's main sponsors since its inception.

Admission of students is by open competitive examination. Each year about 20,000 applications are received; only 250 are selected to join the student body and about 6 places are left for very needy situations where the applicant might not have found a chance to apply but is still merited.

Candidates are judged according to need and parental income and their performance in the national KCPE examinations. Selection is solely on merit.

Starehe Boys' Centre was the result of the vision of Geoffrey William Griffin, assisted by Joseph Gikubu, and Geoffrey Geturo. Its genesis was the earlier State of Emergency declared by the Governor of Colonial Kenya during the 1952 Mau Mau Uprising and the resultant overflow on to the streets of poor and destitute Mau Mau orphans.

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