A Kenyan man who was believed to be the world’s oldest pupil has died at the age of 89, five years after he entered primary school so that he could learn to read the Bible, his family said Monday.

Joseph Stephen Kimani Nganga Maruge died Friday at the Kariobangi Cheshire Home for the aged in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. He died of stomach cancer, said his granddaughter, Anne Maruge.

“When he became ill, he started to cry because he was not going to go to school,” Anne Maruge said.

“Liberty means going to school and learning,” he said in an interview at that time. “You are never too old to learn.”