Butere Girls High School is a girls only public boarding secondary school in

Butere Butere is a town in Kakamega County of the former Western Province (Kenya), Western Province of Kenya. It has an urban population of 4,725 (2009 census). Until 2010, the town was the capital of the former Butere/Mumias District. Transportation l ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

History

Butere Girls High School grew out of a primary school founded by the Irish missionary Jane Elizabeth Chadwick, who arrived in Butere in 1916 and taught there until 1925, when she returned to Ireland. Some of Chadwick's manuscript memories of her early students have been anthologized. The school became a full day school in 1931 and then a boarding school in 1937.Raisa Okwaras
Butere Girls’ High School KCSE results
''Jambo News'', 17 December 2019. Accessed 9 January 2021. The future archbishop

Festo Olang' Festo Habakkuk Olang’,was born in Ebusakami Esabalu village about 1914 In 1925 he began attending Kisumu Primary School, then called Komulo School. In 1927, he sat for the Common Entrance Examination at Maseno School and was admitted in 1928. He s ...

taught at Butere in the early 1940s. In 1957 it became a secondary school. At that time the school was regarded as a leading Protestant girls’ high school, ranked second in Kenya after Alliance Girls High School.Sara Brenda Khanani
The role of the church missionary society in the development of girls’ education in Western Kenya: the case of Butere girls high school, 1957 – 2007
M.Ed. thesis, University of Nairobi, 2015. In 1970 it admitted its first

A level The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational au ...

class. After facing infrastructure, management and discipline problems in the 1980s its academic performance deteriorated. However, its performance recovered and in 2012 the school was promoted to national school category. In 2013 the school presented a controversial play, ''Shackles of Doom'', by the playwright and future senator Cleophas Malala. The play, which addressed the issues of ethnicity,

tribalism Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. Human evolution has primarily occurred in small hunter-gatherer groups, as opposed to in larger and more recently settled agricultural societies or civ ...

and

inequality Inequality may refer to: Economics * Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy * Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups * ...

in Kenya, was banned by the

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

, though the ban was later lifted by the High Court. In 2018 the school's performance of another play by Mabala, ''It is Well'', earned them first place at Western Region Drama Festival. In 2016 the principal, Dorah Okalo, was removed from office after pressure from the Bishop of Butere. In February 2019 a Form Three student committed suicide at the school.

Notable alumni

Joyce Aluoch Joyce Aluoch (born 1947) is a Kenyan lawyer who served as Judge of the International Criminal Court from 2009 until 2018. She is a former judge of the High Court of Kenya. In addition to her career as a judge, she was the First Chairperson of the ...

, lawyer. *

Amina Mohamed Amina Chawahir Mohamed Jibril ( so, Aamina Maxamed Jibriil; ar, أمينة محمد جبريل), born 5 October 1961, is a former Kenyan cabinet secretary, lawyer and a diplomat of Somali descent. She is the immediate former Cabinet Secretary ...

, politician. *

Grace Ogot Grace Emily Ogot (née Akinyi; 15 May 1930 – 18 March 2015) was a Kenyan author, nurse, journalist, politician and diplomat. Together with Charity Waciuma she was the first Anglophone female Kenyan writer to be published.Mike Kuria, ed. ''Ta ...

, writer and politician. *

Janet Okello Janet Musindalo Okelo (born May 5, 1992) is a Kenyan rugby sevens player. She was a member of the Kenyan women's national rugby sevens team for the 2016 Summer Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , ...

, rugby player. *

Effie Owuor Effie Owuor (born 1943) is a Kenyan lawyer and judge who was the country's first female State Counsel, Magistrate, High Court (Kenya), High Court Judge, and Court of Appeal of Kenya, Court of Appeal Judge. Early life and education Owuor was born ...

, judge. *

Rachel Ruto Rachel Chebet Ruto (born 20 November 1968) is a Kenyan educator currently serving as the First Lady of Kenya. She is the wife to William Ruto, the fifth and current President of Kenya. She was instrumental in assisting her husband's campaign, oft ...

, second and later first lady of Kenya.

References

{{coord missing, Kenya Educational institutions established in 1916 1916 establishments in Kenya Girls' schools in Kenya Boarding schools in Kenya High schools and secondary schools in Kenya Kakamega County