About me
Joshua Arimi
My name is Joshua Arimi. I was born in Meru, which is a famous district in Kenya. Merians are known for their strong cultural practices, mt. Kenya climbing points as well as the little known gem, Meru National park.
I attended Kanyakine Boys High School where I was popularly known as Kabush.
During my high school days I developed a strong bias towards education. I felt that in order to succeed in life, good education is very important. I know this is debatable, but for any meaningful advancement in life we need good education.
I took my Bachelor of Science Degree in Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. After My BSc. degree I proceeded to take a MSc degree in Katholieke University Leuven, Belgium. This was followed by another MSc degree in University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland.
Immediately after that I did a PhD degree in Food Science specialising on Microwave heating of snack foods. When people refer to me as Dr. Arimi, I normally pinch myself to confirm that I am a Dr.
This website is created specifically to act as a source of information and motivation to Kenyan and other African kids. Information posted here is to encourage those kids that it is possible to achieve similar feat by persistence and a little effort. I have studied for free for all my degrees except for the first degree. Therefore I believe finances should not be a limiting factor to anyone aspiring to pursue academics.
You can read more about my thoughts at Change Your T and Arimifoods.
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dear DR.JOSHUA,I am delighted to come across your website as i was googling via my phone.i have been indeed touched by your life experience.i am one of the less fortunate child.i passed in std 8 but did not go to a good high school due to lack of funds. i had winded up my KCSE in 2008 from a district day school and scored a B-MINUS of 58 point in respective subjects as follows:English B-,Kiswahili B-,Mathematics D+,Biology B+,Geography B,Chemistry C+ and CRE A.I come from apoor family financially and therefore i will not go far without support.i am sincerely in need and my parents are not able.i earnest and humbly request you to help me.i am reall yearning for education but there is nobody to support me.Given any chance i assure you that i will proof an asset.Thank you in advance and i anticipate to hear from you soon.KEVIN
Hi Kelvin,
I will see how I can help you. Meanwhile, what kind of help are you seeking?
Hi Dr.
I just want to register my gratitude for the good work you are doing. Thank you so much for posting the past papers alongside the marking schemes. Indeed this website will not only be resourceful to students, but also to their teachers. I wish I could invite you to speak to my students at Kereri Girls Kisii. Thanks
Hi Onyango,
Your comments are inspiring. Sure, I will come to speak to your students. Actually, I do speak to students from different schools. At the moment, the earliest time I can come over to Kereri Girls is March 2011 because I am out of the country. I will be in Kenya early next year, I will send you an email then to make arrangements.
If you feel there is any other way I can assist, please send me an email at joshuaarimi(at)yahoo(dot)com.
I wish you the best and God bless.
Dear Dr. Arimi,
my brother will sit for Mathematics paper 1 in his KCSE 2010 examination tommorrow( 22/10/2010). I have just downloaded and printed 2008 and 2009 Mathematics papers and their respective marking schemes. this will help him a great deal. I wish I knew before today that your site existed. I have just come across it through the google search engine.
Im also happy to learn that you are an alumni of JKUAT, so am I.
I’m very much proud of you. may God bless you.
Abdallah
Hi Abdallah,
I am inspired by your comment.
This is exactly why I established this website; to offer help to students when in real need.
Sure I am a JKUAT alumni, I hope you are doing great.
God bless you.
Hi joshua, thank you so much for the contribution that you are making to uplift education in this country. Have a question sir, how do i do to make my doughter imrove in science subjects especially maths. She used to do well in form one and two but now she has droped so badly that i feel like removing her from school.pls advise.
Thanks Okoyo for your question.
Let me make it clear, your daughter is not stupid and the school might not be the problem.
To do well in science your daughter needs one basic and simple thing; Motivation. Your daughter needs to know what is in in it (sciences) for her (me) (WI-FM). Look at areas she is very successful and you will notice she derives some satisfaction or happiness in them. Help her to see similar benefits in sciences from her point view not your point of view. You need to tailor motivation to her view not what you think is good for her. This will help her change attitude towards sciences and she will improve. It takes time.
Most parents make mistakes of motivating their children through fear and intimidation. This mostly involves punishing the child if she doesnot do well. This works only to certain extent after that it fails. Make sure you use positive motivation techniques.
To get back into motivation, it takes time because it requires change of the way she thinks. Be patient with her, and help her the way you would like to be handled if faced with similar situation. Ensure you uphold respect for her, never think she is childish or without reasoning. Get down to her level and pick her up and that way it will work.
The last option is to take her to a school that uses what I call drilling system of education. This involves pumping students with stuff whether they like it or not. Some times it works, other times it fails spectacularly. But in the long run it is not good for good development of the child.
Hope this will help you to get started with helping your daughter.
Dear Arimi,
Thank you for your contribution towards education in kenya.Indeed you are a man to admire
otieno
Thanks Otieno for your compliments.
Dr Arimi,
I am very very happy indeed to have come across you. You have been fortunate to study in some of the best colleges in the world. I have only this week been checking the list of the top 500 universities and both Dublin and Katholieke are ranked very high. Many Kenyans might not know this for a fact. I sense that you are a humble man and keen to contribute.
I suggest that time allowing, you can start a tuition service that asks parents for a token fee and touch even more lives.
As a Phd, I assume you teach or can influence policy at high level because academics could be close or near you. How can we as Kenyans create technical colleges of repute like the ones i read about in India. India produces more engineers than the whole of Europe put together I am told. I am told their success in computing and engineering is a result of the large numbers.
Is there a way we can have engineering college entry exams so we get the best and most competent of our young brains to study what they are passionate about? In India no student gets into an IIT to study engineering without passing the CBSE national exam and an additional exam (even tougher) set by the colleges themselves. In our situation, it would be a student having say 60 per cent in KCSE and then having to pass an exam prepared by the University of Nairobi etc before admission.
Thirdly, you are a man of science, and I wonder what we need to do to have a national mathematics olympiad. I have been checking the net and been disappointed that only South Africa have one in Africa, yet this is a common feature in other continents. Is it because Africa does not take education seriously enough? I ask this because our brilliant brains like you have seen these methods work elsewhere how come we have no motivation to put such plans in place in Africa?
I will not bore you with lots of stuff right now. I hope we can continue the conversation for a long time to come.
Thanks Joseph for your comment.
Your ideas are well thought and progressive in nature.
In Kenya, we can impliment all those programmes to enhance our education system. First, I would say, we need to divorce scholarly work from politics. A scholar can only have influence if he/she has autonomy.
I can set up tuition where parents pay. But this will mostly likely lock out the kids that desperately need it. This idea needs much thought, not like a business idea, but a way to offer service to community although users might be required to chip in.
I understand your point about Engineers. Like now, every graduate in Kenya has a MBA, few are taking challenging postgraduate degrees like programming, product development, machine design etc which are relevant for our economy. This is fueled by lack of good career advisor and councellors.
About Mathematics, in Kenya we have a culture of ‘taking advice from the street’. Most people take what their friends, newspapers and political pundits say seriously without due analysis of the information. Many students think Maths is hard because of what their close associates say. However, it is the easiest subject if you ask me. Since the time pope was an alter boy, the formula for solving quadratic equation remains the same. Once you understand it, thats 10 marks in section B of mathematics. As a student spare 1 month to understand it.
To improve mathematics, we need culture change. I mean mental image alteration. In more technical terms, paradigm shift.
We can talk more. Feel free to email me at joshuaarimi(at)yahoo(dot)com.
Goodevening to you man! Ah! God is the one who definately brought me across this website yesterday. And be assured that because of what I’ve even come across today when continuing to go through the website leaves me no excuse over why I should not be able to pass the coming K.C.S.E. of 2011 that I am determined to redo over again upon proper revision and much more effort in addition to your assistance right over here to a point that its better late than NEVER. For definately I can succeed in attaining that required C+ grade and join this particular private known as University of Eastern Africa, Baraton being one of the Seventh Day Adventist Church managed institutions in Africa.
Hi Japheth,
As we communicated in facebook, believe me that you can get a higher grade than the one you are targeting. These are the reasons which make me believe you can get those grades:
1. I can sense determination and perseverance in the tone of your comment. This implies that it is coming right from your heart. This is one of the characteristics of all successful people in the world.
2. It is exactly 1 year to exam in 2011. So you have more than enough time.
Since your case is special, please email me at joshuaarimi (at)yahoo (dot)com. We will work together from there.
Goodevening to you Joshua. And thanks very much for your response to my comment and additional appeal as indicated earlier on. Definately we will work much more and I say glory be to God for having made it possible to meet you over here. Do have a nice time and keep up the good work and the same spirit.
Japheth O.N. Amayo
Hi Joshua,
rather unfortunate am discovering u this late.Am sitting ma exams this yr..KCSE.I wish i had seen your site ealier but all in all thx be to God for great pple like you.Thanks a lot and may you be blessed.
Thanks Irene,
It is not late. Do not panic or be anxious. Put your head down and revise well. It will be fine. If there is any specif need you need that you think I can offer just let me know.
All the best as you revise.
I wud like to tok to u.If you don’t mind through your -mail address.
Hi Irene,
No problem, feel free to get intouch with me through my email at joshuaarimi(at)yahoo(dot)com
Joshua Arimi, by God’s grace, you are an inspiration!
Bwana Arimi,
Just curious,you did a Ph.D in what and what do you do for a living?
Hi Henry, I did my PhD in Food Science. My Thesis was on microwave expansion of a crispy snack food.
Doing for a living? I tend to view this question differently. I do things because I am living and not to do things inorder to live. Having said that, I am really into helping others where I can. Using my knowledge and skills to offer simple solutions and ideas to improve life.
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