CHRIS KANDANGO says he started school in Grade 7 at the Salvation Army after the headteacher called him to write a mock exam. He later passed the final exam that year and became the number one pupil in Grade 8. The entrepreneur narrated, “My headteacher was seeing me playing football outside with friends daily; she …

CHRIS KANDANGO says he started school in Grade 7 at the Salvation Army after the headteacher called him to write a mock exam. He later passed the final exam that year and became the number one pupil in Grade 8.

The entrepreneur narrated, “My headteacher was seeing me playing football outside with friends daily; she called me to ask me what’s the problem, why I’m always there, and why I don’t go to school.”

He continued, “I had to explain the situation, then she was like, ‘Can you read?’ I said I can try. She said, ‘Come, I’ll put you with your friend, you read, you go inside, then you write the exam.’ That’s how it all started.”

After proceeding to Grade 8 at St. Patrick’s Basic School, teachers failed to chase him from class despite him not paying tuition fees because they were worried about who was going to be passing number 1 when he was gone, a spot Chris says he had worked so hard to achieve.

“If we chase this boy out, we don’t have anyone to pass number one in this class; we are going to destroy him,” he explained how he managed to stay in school using brains as he didn’t have capable sponsors.

Chris Kandango told his host B Flow that he was raised by his widowed gardener grandmother who could barely fend for them as they sometimes went to bed on empty stomachs, and hence he worked hard in school, passing well in sciences and mathematics but had a difficult time in English.

He grew up in Zambia Compound, Choma, with an interesting start to education, hustled around and found himself in the United Arab Emirates’ Dubai, and now he is inspiring thousands on socials with what he has built for himself.