All students in 137-day secondary schools in Mombasa will receive a Sh5000 bursary per year to be paid by the County Government.
Governor Abdulswamad Nassir says they have allocated Sh200m to be disbursed to 64 Public and 73 private schools. 32285 students in public schools and 7651 in private schools will benefit from the bursary.
The move by the County Government is aimed at ensuring the retention of students in schools, ensuring fairness in the issuance of bursaries which was marred with allegations of favouritism, and relieving parents from back and forth in pursuit of bursaries.
Last year bursary forms were issued through the offices of Member of County Assembly (MCAs) and Sub-County Administration, but due to the overwhelming demand for the forms the Governor was forced to change the stratagem of issuance of bursaries not to leave any deserving child.
“We used both the office of MCAs and Sub-County Administrations. We realized there are a lot of blame games that are going in individual officeholders,” said Governor Nassir.
“I have made a decision that every child in the whole of Mombasa County who is a day scholar in all our schools is going to get a bursary amount of Sh5000 per child,” he added.
However, the bursaries are going to be limited to students whose parents are registered voters of Mombasa. The bursary will be restricted to a parent-one-child policy.
“We are looking at the County Government injecting in the day secondary schools about Sh200million,” stated Nassir.
For students schooling in schools outside and who have applied for bursaries, funds will be disbursed to their respective schools.
“This is going to be a milestone for the people of Mombasa, equally we are going to have a Governor’s scholarship, and every school has selected four students to be beneficiaries,” said Nassir.
On his part Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association Mombasa Chairman and Principal of Miritini Secondary School Peter Watoro thanked the Governor for the initiative that is poised to be a game changer in the education sector.
“We are quite grateful for the enormous support we have been getting from the Governor,” said Watoro urging students to reciprocate the gesture by excelling in academics.
By Sadik Hassan
