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

Butere Butere is a town in Kakamega County, which was formerly part of the Western Province of Kenya. According to the 2019 Kenya National Census, it has an Urban population of 154,100. Until 2010, Butere served as the capital of the former Butere/M ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

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’ (c. 1914 – 3 February 2004, in Nairobi) was a Kenyan Anglican archbishop. He was born in Ebusakami Esabalu village. In 1925 he began attending Kisumu Primary School, then called Komulo School. In 1927, he sat for the Com ...

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 Alliance Girls' High School (AGHS) is a public national boarding school for girls located near the small town of Kikuyu in Kiambu County, 20 km from Nairobi. Founded in 1948 by Alliance of protestors mission.it is within walking distance fro ...

.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 ...

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 An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

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

and

inequality Inequality may refer to: * Inequality (mathematics), a relation between two quantities when they are different. * Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups ** Income inequality, an unequal distribution of i ...

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 (; , born 5 October 1961) is a former Kenyan cabinet secretary, lawyer and a diplomat of Somali descent. She is the immediate former Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Heritage and Culture in Kenya. She previously ser ...

, 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. ''T ...

, writer and politician. * Janet Okello, rugby player. *

Norah Olembo Professor Norah Khadzini Olembo (10 June 1941 – 11 March 2021) was a Kenyan biochemist and policy developer, who helped establish standards for use of biotechnology in Kenya. She was the first African to become a professor and chair of the bi ...

(1941-2021), biochemist and biotechnology policy advocate *

Doreen Othero Doreen Alice Maloba Othero (born 05 October 1962) is a public health specialist, a registered nurse, academic, and research and policy analyst in Kenya. She specialises in interdisciplinary solutions to development to ensure that the interrelate ...

, public health expert, academic, regional research and policy development expert and diplomat for the

East African Community The East African Community (EAC) is an intergovernmental organisation in East Africa. The EAC's membership consists of eight states: Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Federal Republic of Somalia, the Republics of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, S ...

. *

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

, judge. *

Rachel Ruto Rachel Chebet Ruto (born 20 November 1969) is a Kenyan educator currently serving as the First Lady of Kenya. She is the wife of William Ruto, the fifth and current President of Kenya. Early life Rachel Chebet was born in Likuyani, Kakamega C ...

, 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