County Bursaries come in handy for needy students with financial challenges to pursue higher education. The primary criteria for selecting the most deserving student is the financial ability of the parent or guardian to ensure fair and equitable distribution of the funds.
However, there still many challenges with the county government especially on how they distribute bursaries. While these funds should be giving the deserving students an opportunity, bursaries have are now one of the bribery tools that governors use on MCA, and in most cases, the funds are not prudently handled. These funds a sensitive matter and both the county and national assembly should sit down and restructure it because disbursing funds to two separate kitties held by the MPs and MCAs leads to duplication of resources and it becomes a burden to the taxpayer.
“All too often there are very many applications for the funds and due to high demand for the funds, whatever is allocated cannot accommodate everyone. To ensure that we take in as many students as possible, those students receiving county bursaries are excluded from the CDF fund.
“Although be county scholarships step in to help, there are a lot of difficulties because Kenyans are a selfish lot some people will sneak in people who don’t deserve to get bursaries into the lists. There always has to be someone policing the whole issue. Bursaries are a sensitive matter. But the reason we are having them in the first place is because we have failed as a nation in running our education system,” said Eseli Simiyu, MP Tongareni during a panel discussion on NTV.
While any money into bursaries is money to good use, cases of duplication and abuse are equally prevalent. Many will money in bursaries is put into good use as compared to the multibillions stolen in the likes of Arror and Kimwarer Dam scandal. Truth be told no matter how much money is pumped into the bursaries, there is a dire need to fix the education system by investing in lowering the cost of learning so that everyone can afford education.