June 07, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 02, 1429

ELDORET (Kenya), June 6: An 88-year-old Kenyan man who was the world’s oldest school pupil was forced to abandon his studies when he was moved to a home for the aged, teachers and aid workers said on Friday.

Kimani Nganga Maruge became a celebrity when he joined a school in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret at the age of 84, earning him a Guinness book of records entry as the oldest man ever to start primary school.

A former Mau-Mau who fought British settlers in the 1950s, the elderly Kenyan had already seen his schooling disrupted earlier this year when he was displaced with hundreds of thousands of others by post-electoral violence.

The school’s head teacher told AFP that Nganga, now in grade five, never missed school before and his failure to show up for class at 7:30am on Thursday prompted the staff to look for their illustrious pupil.

“We immediately had to establish what had gone wrong to ascertain our fears before his fellow pupils told us they had seen him aboard a Red Cross vehicle,” Jane Obinchu said.—AFP