Most bursaries issued by the government and banks are biased on the choice of recipients and most benefit those with some social or other relationships with funding teams.
Parents and guardians in Embu County have welcomed calls for consolidation of the funds to avoid discrimination linked to tribal, regional, religious and political inclinations, among others.
General mismanagement of the bursaries, they say, sometimes leads to high funding of learners from financially stable backgrounds against those from clearly poor and deserving families.
The stakeholders say that despite persistently complaining about the bursaries issued under the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF), nothing has changed.
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Parents from Manyatta and Mbeere South who did not want their full names disclosed for fear of reprisals, Njeru and Njoka, claimed that zones known to have elected those opposed to sitting MPs and MCAs suffer discrimination.
“In zones in Mbeere South where communities are known to have voted for the former MP Geoffrey King’ang’i, needy students applying for bursaries have been known to have been outrightly discriminated and left out of the lists of the beneficiaries,’’ said Njeru.
In Mbeti South area in Manyatta Constituency where the sitting MP got few votes, management committees are dominated mainly by people who led the legislator’s campaigns,’’ said Njoka.
The two say that collusion could also be taking place where inspecting staffers from donor organizations operate with some parents to share the loot in a corrupt way under syndicates which spread widely, sometimes involving school administrators and principals.
In one such funding, which shocked neighbours in Manyatta, a learner who performed averagely in his KCPE examinations a few years ago earned a four-year secondary school sponsorship from a leading bank against a background where the father is wealthy.
Parents and guardians from across various parts of Embu County agree with various stakeholders, including academicians and Chief Justice Martha Koome, that all education funds should be managed under one kitty.
By Robert Nyagah
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