St Francis Girls High School- Mang'u

Our name: st. Francis girls’ high school – mang’u

We are named after the patron saint of the congregation of the franciscan mmissionary sisters for africa (fmsa) who founded the school as part of their evagelistic mission in mang’u – a typical kenyan rural area.

The sisters were expressing their love and concern for the poor rural kenyan girl child. Their vision for her became our mission.

Our motto, vision and mission embrace the present without loosing sight of the past, found by the franciscan sisters who strongly believed in excellent character formation as a sound foundation for academic excellence: virtue and knowledge would empower the girls who learn in the school to productively and actively serve humanity at all levels of the human society.

The school anthem which is a call to serve is derived from the peace prayer associated with our patron saint.

Our anthem: (franciscan peace prayer)

Lord

Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred,
Let me bring your love,
Where there is injury,
Your pardon lord,
And where there’s faithlessness,
True faith in you.

Oh master grant that,
i may never seek,
So much to be consoled,
as to console.
To be understood,
As to understand
To be loved,
As to love with all my soul.

• St. Francis school started as a boarding school for girls in 1944.
• It was started by the fraciscan missionary sisters.
• In 1964 the sisters started a form 1 harembee class which gradually replaced the intermediate primary school.
• In 1965, the school received a grant in aid for that year’s form 1 class and since then it continued to get government grants like any other public school until 1987 when all grants from the ministry of education were stopped.

Parents have continued to meet all the financial obligations that the ministry used to take care of.

Early development:

Transforming the old intermediate school to a secondary school inevitably brought many problems e.g. Lack of proper physical facilities for secondary expansion.
• Some of the problem were solved later through the ministry of education grants.

The school remained a single stream school until 1972, until then, it occupied the old st. Francis compound across the busy white-sisters / thika – naivasha road.
• Towards the end of 1972, the famous old mang’u high school moved from this compound and through the intervention of h.e. the late cardinal utunga, the ministry allowed the girls to move to the old mang’u school premises.
• In 1973, the school therefore started a second stream.
• Following the phasing out of the “a” levels, our scholl remained a two-steamed school until 2000.
• In 2001 a new form 1 stream was opened. The school is now 3 stream from form 1 to 1v.it has a students’ population of 570, 40 teachers and 30 members of non-teaching staff.

Expansion of the school to 3 streams:

• The board of governors and the p.t.a have initiated a 4 year expansion plan for the school whrer the expansion programme has to be done in phases. Part of this plan was implemented in year 2001 through the opening of 3rd provincial stream in the school.
• We thank the new form 1 class in line with the government policy to expand existing school. We have been able to renovate some of the existing facilities so as to accommodate the new class. Further plans are being made to contruct a new board complex and other facilities on harambee basis to complete the expansion programme at an estimated total cost of ksh 46 million. This will also include the expansion of our laboratory facilities so that we can continue to offer quality, accessible and relevant education to our students.