Based on the true story, Maruge is an 84-year-old Kenyan villager who wanders into a local school after hearing about a new "Free Education For All" policy endorsed by the Education Department. He has no money, no loved ones and no skills in literacy or numeracy. Jumping through hoops, he is finally accepted and is guided by the young, loveable and wholesome teacher Ms. Obinchu (Naomie Harrris). But naturally, this causes a great deal of controversy in the press and larger community, believing it to be wrong for such a man to be educated alongside young children. But as Maruge fights for his right to be educated, we learn of another fight he endured back in the 1950s, when during British Colonial rule he was tortured, imprisoned, and his wife and two young children executed before his eyes. Told through a series of memory flashbacks these sequences are quite upsetting and almost distracting and supplementary to the central plot, but are helpful in explaining his physical handicaps.