Nairobi — Nairobi County is one among other counties that have a girl as its top candidate in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education results that were announced yesterday, January 28. This time, gender balance has been achieved in performance in most of the counties, unlike in previous years.

The girl, Shalom Nthenya Mulinge, from the Consolata School is also the sixth student nationally. Consolata School is run by Consolata Missionaries.

The 14 year old was at their home in Karen when she received the news about her exemplary performance.

"I was surprised; I was really shocked and was shaking with excitement when I was called by my friend Joy," said an ecstatic Shalom.

Shalom is among the girls who have broken the gender imbalance trend that has been in previous years where boys performed better than girls, but 2012 performance saw girls perform better than boys in most counties.

Shalom, who loves Mathematics and science, hopes to join Kenya High School and in future train as an engineer.

She was very proud of herself and of other girls who dominated the top ten list in the school.

"Trust in God because He provides for all and to believe in themselves and to take criticisms positively," she advised other pupils.

The principal of Consolata School, Fr Caroli Ogeda, was impressed by the students' performance, and the fact that girls dominated the top positions in the school.

Among 61 students who sat the exam, 50 scored above 300 marks out of the possible 500, with six students scoring over 400 marks.

"Women and girl child empowerment must have led to the great performance of girls over boys" he said

"Good leadership is paramount for good performance, as is time management and organisation of staff and students" he added.