COL Harry Vialou Clark has returned from another scholarship award trip to Kenya on what turned out to be a visit characterised by great highs but also a major disappointment.

He became involved in a passionate campaign to help improve educational standards when he saw the difference between the English prep school in Kenya, where he was working as a bursar, and a local primary school.

Komathai Primary School was little more than a shack and he raised £25,000 to build a new school for them. A second school, Karuri Primary, has also now been built at a cost of £35,000.

And his registered charity, the Langalanga Scholarship Fund, raises money to send bright youngsters to high school. Karuri was opened in 1999 but all the building work has only recently been finally completed, so Col Vialou Clark went along this year for the formal opening ceremony.

In January last year no student at the school had reached the required standard and he told them that he would donate a certain amount of his own money for every child reaching specific standards.

"This year, to my stunned amazement, I ended up paying £200 of my own money and I was absolutely thrilled," he said. The school had done superbly well and Col Vialou Clark ended up awarding scholarships to three students from Karuri.

Sadly, the news from Komathai was very different. "To my horror I found that not a single child was even close to getting a scholarship. They had failed and that really upset me." The main difference between the two schools, he believes, is that everyone involved with Karuri pulled together to help get the results.

In an attempt to kick start Komathai again, he and his wife Alison came up with an incentive scheme in which the school would receive £200 if standards improved to a certain level.

In all he awarded 11 scholarships to students from a range of schools. He was delighted that two of them were girls, since in Kenya girls are not expected to do as well as the boys.

It is something he wants to help change and is keen to find bright girls to send on to high school.

The scholarship fund's patron is The Duke of Richmond and Gordon and the vice-patrons are Lord Luce, Lord Howell of Guildford, Baroness Cumberlege, Sir George Young, Sir Anthony Evans and Sir John James.

Yet another scheme launched by the colonel with fellow trustee Simon Harris aims to help harvest rainwater at certain schools with a proper drainage system and collections tanks.

The scheme is important because of the drought that has afflicted Kenya during the past couple of years.

And at the moment any rainfall that does fall is wasted by the schools.

The project means that when its completed the students and staff will have a ready supply of water.

If you would like to help or donate to the charity Col Vialou Clark's address is Folly Cottage, Penton Mewsey, Andover SP11 ORQ.

Tel: 01264 773674; email - Harrison@vialouclark.freeserve.co.uk. And the charity's website is www.langalanga.org.uk