By Florence Muchori and C. Bryson Hull

NAKURU, Kenya, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Political peace may not be back in Kenya, but school is.

Whether displaced by violence triggered by a disputed election that put President Mwai Kibaki back in power, or just getting ready for the new term starting on Monday, Kenyans' focus on education has not wavered.

Riots in the streets and ethnically-motivated attacks that displaced at least 250,000 people in the east African nation prompted a one-week delay in the start of the school year.

But for the most part, people are ready to send their children back despite the unrest.

"I will definitely take my kids to school on Monday in Molo. Whoever is so evil as to hurt children in a school, let them do it," civil servant Esther Muhito said, referring to a Rift Valley town that has seen ethnic clashes since before the vote.

"Life has to go on. It cannot be that every time someone loses, they turn around and hack you to death."

At Nakuru Showgrounds, where thousands of refugees from the Kikuyu tribe have fled attacks from their Kalenjin neighbours in the Rift Valley, school will start on Monday as planned.

"We are going to give people the option to enrol in local schools or take their classes here," said Jesse Njoroge, the volunteer head of information at the makeshift refugee camp.

"We've got displaced teachers here -- nursery, primary and secondary level -- and we have records and all the logistics so we can get started," he said.

EDUCATION IS IMPORTANT

Kenyans, like many Africans, see education as a priority and are willing to spend proportionally large amounts of their earnings to pay for it. It is common for parents to sell family land to pay for school, especially university.

In the centre of Nakuru, a trading town 160 km (100 miles) north of Nairobi, parents queued dozens deep to buy school uniforms, notebooks, pencils and textbooks on Saturday.

Education is a priority of Kibaki's government and in his first term he re-introduced free primary education, lost amid corruption under the rule of his predecessor, Daniel arap Moi.

Despite the mayhem sparked by the president's contested victory at Dec. 27 polls, new Education Minister Sam Ongeri went ahead with plans to subsidise secondary school fees heavily -- to the point that tuition itself is free.

Teachers and headmasters in clash-hit areas say they are going to try their best to meet the order from the Education Ministry that school is to start on Monday.

"We are going to study the situation and see whether we can re-open, and whether the students will come back," said George Gathige, headmaster of Chirchir Secondary School in Burnt Forest.

Three schools were razed during attacks on Kikuyus in Burnt Forest, since 1992 the site of Kalenjin raids on their rivals from Kenya's largest and most economically dominant tribe at election time.

Some parents said opposition challenger Raila Odinga's move to call three days of rallies from Wednesday, in defiance of a police ban, had made them consider whether to send their children to school.

"I am going to wait a week," said hairdresser Gladys Waithira, who sends her children to school near Kakamega, a site of opposition unrest. "All of my clients say they are going to wait a week to see if Raila's demonstrations kick off." (editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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