250 needy students from Bomet County who excelled in the 2021 KCPE had a reason to smile after the County government granted them a four-year scholarship.
Gracing the event, the area Governor, Professor Hillary Barchok stressed that education is a stepping stone for the students coming from humble backgrounds, as it is a platform to bridge the widening gap of inequality among people.
Prof. Barchok further explained that most students from poor homesteads excel in school, and lack of fees inhibits their scholarly ambitions, which end up killing their dreams.
“The continuously rising cost of education and standards of living makes it difficult for many families to take their bright students to schools of their choice,” explained the governor.
“In recognition of this fact and the constitutional tenets of education as a basic right, our county government has successfully implemented a full four-year scholarship for 250 bright and needy students as well as partial scholarship/bursaries to more than 6,000 high school students, annually,” he explained.
The governor maintained that his administration will be making follow-ups to ascertain the performance of students under this program to ensure no government resources are going to waste.
Bomet County government will also roll out the County HELB programme for students coming from the area and studying in various tertiary institutions.
In the financial year, 2018/2019 the county government disbursed Sh61 million to both partial and fully sponsored bursaries, while in 2019/2020 at least Sh65 million was used to benefit 642 beneficiaries.
The governor promised that his administration is intending to aid students from poverty-stricken backgrounds to achieve the full transition from primary schools to secondary schools which is one of the objectives of the government.
“We want to attain the full transition objective of the government, this can only be realized if we support these needy students, and also to fully implement this we need to retain them in classes by providing sponsorships like this,” explained the governor.
The sponsored students are expected to join form one from this week in different schools around the country. The programme has so far benefited 1,000 needy students since its inception by the late Governor Dr Joyce Laboso in 2018.
By Lamech Arisa
