At the beginning of every year, the media is awash with cases of hundreds of bright but needy students who cannot join high school for lack of fees.
With many programmes targeting such students, it illustrates a dysfunctional bursary system.
This week, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha will launch the Elimu Scholarship Programme that is jointly supported by the government, Equity Bank and the World Bank and targets 9,000 students.
Equity Bank and Jomo Kenyatta Foundation are among institutions that have evolved a steady bursary scheme that supports many needy students.
However, the question of bursary remains vexed because of the way it has been managed.
First, the government bursary scheme has been badly handled over the years. In the past, government gave bursaries through schools.
School managers were entrusted with identifying needy students through a means-tested criteria, giving bursary to the deserving. But that was bungled through corruption and nepotism.
Subsequently, the model was changed and replaced by a constituency-based bursary scheme. But that has also become a veritable mess.
Politicians turned it into a campaign tool. Cases abound where MPs give a flat figure to all applicants, irrespective of their status to justify their claim to paying fees for their constituents.
The net result is that the needy hardly benefit, for even if they get the cash, the amounts are negligible and of little use.
Secondly, the many bursary programmes are not coordinated. The modes of application or identifying deserving cases is unclear.
Not surprisingly, they never benefit the needy. Worse, in some situations, certain students get more than one bursary, which amounts to corruption besides denying others their due.
Precisely, the issue of the bursary scheme should be revisited. Past and present government models have failed. It is incumbent on the leaders to streamline the processes to serve the needy.
Over the recent years, the government has been developing a database for all learners through the National Education Management Information System (Nemis), which is aimed at streamlining cash disbursement to schools.
This can be expanded and regularly updated to capture personal details, including the socio-economic status of the student’s family and thereafter provide a basis for bursary allocations.
Add to this coordination, so that all organisations giving bursaries are registered and the programmes aligned to eliminate duplication and corruption.
There is a lot of cash to support needy students and what is required is proper coordination and management to avoid this perennial hue and cry of qualified students missing school.
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