Bursary
Nyamira Governor Amos Nyaribo has given out bursaries worth Sh.66 million to needy and vulnerable students in the County. The bursaries will assist form one and two students, while forms three and four students will be considered in the next financial year.
During the bursary launch, Nyaribo observed that most families in the County are living in absolute poverty, struggling to meet their most basic needs like food and shelter, and though education is a basic right to every child it is out of reach to such poor families.
“I understand that basic education is a function of the national government, but due to budget constraints, they cannot manage to meet all the needy cases in the entire county. That is why my county government set aside some funds to assist our needy students to ensure all our children have access to basic education,” he explained.
The governor revealed that apart from the bursaries, he had also initiated a scholarship fund which was currently supporting 751 students in various secondary schools.
The scholarship supports bright students, who are extremely vulnerable by paying all their school fees and enrolling them in a mentorship programme to equip them with life skills to ensure they live responsibly and remain focused in their studies and lives.
“The beneficiary students, who will be reported to be undisciplined by their respective school administrations will automatically be discontinued from the education support because we still have various needy students who we have not managed to assist due to budget constraints,” Nyaribo warned.
He further advised youths who have cleared their secondary education to enroll in approved county Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) and acquire technical skills of their interest because the global job market is in dire need of professionals, with hands on technical skills to be deployed in their production and manufacturing firms for profits to boost their country’s economy at the same time sustain livelihoods of those employed there.
“My County is soon starting to enroll youths in our completed and fully equipped ICT centre to train them on outsourcing of online job opportunities and I’ll ensure that each constituency has an ICT centre like the one at the county headquarters. We shall be enrolling a batch of 35 youths for a period of three months throughout the year,” Nyaribo confirmed.
The governor hinted that he will propose to the County assembly to approve next year’s county education budget, be allocated to revamp and facelift ECDE centres to give young children the best basic education start up and equip the VTCs youth modern equipment for training to attain the global standard marketable technical skills, which will enable them secure jobs in any part of the world.
Manga ward MCA Samuel Ogeto, who is also the chairperson of the education committee, appreciated the selection committees from all the wards in the county who participated in the scrutiny and vetting of hundreds of bursary applicants. The exercise was rigorous and time consuming but proper coordination and dedication to the exercise made it a success.
He challenged the students who benefitted from the bursary to work hard in school, score good grades, which will enable them pursue marketable careers in the near future.
Parents were more than happy for the education support they received from the County Government saying they had lost hope in sustaining their children in school due to tough economic times and strain to even meet the very basic needs for their families.