Bomet County Governor Prof. Hillary Barchok has announced a robust educational support plan for needy students, launching a bursary program amounting to Ksh141 million.
The county boss stated that the bursary program aims to fully sponsor over 250 students into Form One, while an additional 7,000 students will receive partial scholarships.
Barchok urged schools to consistently monitor students’ performance and discipline among those sponsored by the county. He also advocated the harmonization of bursaries between the county and the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to avoid duplication.
He joined his counterparts in resisting the proposed national government takeover of the Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) function, insisting that the success of ECDE programs is owed to the efforts of devolved units.
In endorsing the county’s role in employing nursery school teachers, Barchok stressed the importance of grants to support this initiative.
Similarly, in Mombasa County, Governor Abdulswamad Nassir has unveiled a new bursary program targeting all secondary day school learners in the county. He stated that the County Government of Mombasa has committed Ksh 200 million to ensure that approximately 40,000 students across the county have access to secondary school education.
Under this initiative, each student from the 64 public secondary schools and 73 private secondary schools will receive Ksh 5,000, emphasizing the commitment to leave no child behind.
The bursary program is set to commence this month and is expected to benefit approximately one child per family in the county. Similar bursary programs have been successfully undertaken in other counties like Mandera, Kiambu, Nyamira, and Makueni, among others.
Gene Gituku
