In February 2009 I visited Gilgil - only my second visit to Kenya.

The main purpose of my trip was to meet Kenneth Kimani, our spondee.   Kenneth had finished his four years of secondary school and was expecting his KCSE results. After four years of correspondence it was an emotional moment to meet him face to face.   He is a fine and charming young Kenyan – the third of eleven children - and a credit to his mother and to the Langalanga Scholarship Fund.  (See www.langalanga.org.uk).   Needless to say the expected exam results were late (just like England then) but I was delighted to hear, on my return, that he has got grades which will probably enable him to achieve his ambition of becoming a secondary school teacher after studying at University.

As well as meeting Kenneth I was able to spend much of my five days in Gilgil visiting several of the Kariandusi School Trust supported schools.   I was left with rich but jumbled impressions, struck both by the obvious contrasts between primary school in rural Kenya and here in England, but also by some of the similarities.  Perhaps the similarities run deeper than the differences.

There was a magnificent ceremony for the formal opening and handover of Ngeteti Primary School which has been entirely rebuilt by the Kariandusi School Trust.  There are classrooms for 320 pupils, a library, and staff accommodation.  Ngeteti looks and feels like a school.  Children from other local Kariandusi School Trust primaries had walked to Ngeteti in great numbers, apparently unperturbed by the sun despite their pinafores and woollen jumpers.  There were exuberant dancing displays and orations from the pupils, followed by cutting the ribbon.  Unpacking the boxes of books provided for the new library created great excitement.  And the parents were hanging on every word (of the mixture of English and Swahili) as Colonel Harry Vialou Clark unveiled the commemorative plaque.

Ngeteti was in celebratory mood: but what are Gilgil schools like when they are at work? Primary education is 'free' in Kenya: but that means simply that the revenue costs are paid for by the government.  The local community has to provide the school buildings.  At Karunga and Ngumo I saw what that means in practice.  Karunga has stone buildings but with leaking roofs, and unglazed windows. There is little or no rainwater collection and therefore no good source of water. The floors are bare earth.  The facilities at the remote Ndogo primary, reached by a long dirt track, are still more primitive. There are few books.

In all schools the teaching is old fashioned by English standards – essentially rote learning; but that is to some extent unavoidable given the rudimentary teaching facilities even in the rebuilt schools. When the only thing in a classroom is a blackboard, you cannot teach science using Bunsen burners and test tubes.  You cannot show young children how to use a computer when you have no computers and no electricity.

But there is a keen determination and eagerness to learn.  Perhaps young Kenyans instinctively understand better than some of their English counterparts that school gives them their only chance of improvement and advancement: poor Kenyan children are not diverted by the corrosive supposed alternative escape route of meaningless celebrity.  It is school or nothing.

I also visited Simba and Kariandusi schools and had a brief opportunity to see the head teachers in action and to talk to them. These are schools with excellent discipline and an openness to new ideas.  We discussed the idea of sometimes finding ways to reward effort as well as achievement – which was received as a novel but intriguing suggestion.

But despite the differences in the physical environments, and in the culture of these schools when compared with their English counterparts, there are certainly some familiar features. Every headmaster's office carries charts on the walls. One shows the struggle to match income (not always received when expected) and expenditure. The other tracks pupils' progress and records test marks. One is left with the impression that the style and quality of the headteacher is the most important determinant of the style and quality of school – so no difference there.

Stone walls do not a prison make; and stone walls, glazed windows and concrete floors cannot make a school either.  But what the Kariandusi School Trust can and does do is to provide the school facilities in which the dedicated staff and eager pupils can create schools in which these young Kenyans have a realistic chance of fulfilling their potential, and without which no school can properly function.

Nicholas Vineall QC.