My search for glory as trainer of medical talent

Denis Oketch says he has worked for people but only did so to learn the art of enterprise war. Because at 25 years and immediately after graduation and working as a volunteer at a hospital in Thika Town he approached the management with the idea of starting a medical school.

Let’s give it a try, the ownership of Central Memorial Hospital endorsed his idea and Kenya School of Medical Science and Technology was born in 2006. He was named the principal of the school but didn’t take long before he was poached by another medical facility to launch a similar business.

He became the inaugural principal of Thika School of Medical and Health Sciences that was started with eight students in 2008. He stayed there for eight years, growing student population to 2,000.

More than a decade after he made the first bold successful step, Mr Oketch, now 38, is the owner and manager of Tricent School of Medical Health Science and Technology — offering certificate and diploma in various courses — with two campuses, in Nairobi West and Juja Town, the latter admitting students for the first time in May.

The trainer has won regulators’ nod to run various courses in the medical field and signed working agreements with hospitals to help with practicals.

Tricent, a sole proprietorship, is the fourth medical school Mr Oketch has launched. ‘’I was convinced I would own a medical school and all these places I worked were mere stepping stones to my ultimate dream,” says Mr Oketch.

But why this obsession with starting medical colleges? The medical laboratory sciences graduate of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) says “research revealed to me that Kenyans lack places to go for right medical training while there is a huge demand”.

The scramble for Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) training opportunities is one of the signs that people are keen on medical training, he said. Run by the government, the KMTCs are “well equipped”, he said, but many were getting disappointed to the point of losing hope in the professions they dreamt of while growing up when they miss a chance at these State-run institutions.  

Across the county, more than 34,000 students take more than 70 medical courses at the KMTCs that produce more than 8,000 graduates annually.

However, hundreds of thousands compete for these courses yearly.

In 2017, up to 610,501 sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations, but only 70,073 — about 11.38 per cent of the candidates who sat for the national exams — attained the minimum university entry grade of C+ (plus) and above.

The rest had the option of registering for certificate of diploma courses, presenting a huge opportunity for middle level colleges, private and public.

Prompt admissions, says Mr Oketch, after Form Four exams would, therefore, attract a big number of young people to private colleges.

While friends and peers thought he was “crazy” to leave a stable job paying him his Sh250,000 a month, he knew the figure was nothing to write home about compared to what the trainers get.

“My experience convinced me that the salary was a drop in the ocean. The naysayers did not have the information I had.”

He was, therefore, convinced to go it alone. “When you are focued, don’t look at the challenge; people said I was mad to leave a fat salary.”

Armed with between Sh800,000 and Sh1 million savings, he made the plunge in 2016 and today he has a student population of between 70 and 90.

He collects an average of Sh1 million per term. Between 10 and 20 years, Tricent will have campuses in more than 40 counties, dreams the proprietor. Mr Oketch says the business has parcels of land in Kajiado, Malindi, Thika and Kisumu.

“I had a vision of working at Thika School of Medical and Health Sciences for five years and then start my own school, actually I overstayed there,” he says. Because the high advertising costs, he uses word of mouth marketing by approaching young people agents, asking chemists and “old men operating hardware shops” to send their children to Tricent.

A keen follower of Chris Kirubi, Mr Oketch says he likes the billionaire’s phrase that no employer gives you a job to make you rich. “Chris Kirubi is role-model because he controls the economy.”

Louis Barajas says in his book, Small Business Big Life that “…..”

Studying Health Systems Management for his master’s at Kenya Methodist University, Mr Oketch who is married and father of two, says young people looking for jobs ought to think business and be willing start small.