Aryan, her three younger brothers and their mother fled civil unrest in Somalia in 2014.
She witnessed the killing of her father and her older brother by armed militia, and her family was too scared to stay at home, so they sought refuge in Kenya.
Kenya: Scholarships help vulnerable students complete secondary education
April 16, 2025
|
4 minutes read
Read how Kenya is making access to education more equitable and supporting the most vulnerable students to fulfill their potential.
“When I go to school, I try my best to work hard. I also try to do more after-school lessons. My favorite subject is English.”
“Now that I’ve become the father and mother to this family, I’ve had to make the decision on how to progress with the children I have left. My biggest focus was on my daughter because she was vulnerable. I managed to convince her to start thinking of going to school because I believe in my heart that school is good.”
Aryan is deaf and communicates with sign language. She thought that starting at a new school would be difficult but took on the challenge in hope of a better future. She explains, “If I get a job, I will be able to support my family. I will also be able to ease my mother’s problems.”
She applied for an Elimu scholarship through the Ministry of Education of Kenya: US$3,200 to cover school fees, learning materials and transportation to and from school for four years of secondary school. Scholarship recipients also receive mentoring services to help ensure they successfully complete secondary education.
The aim of the scholarship program is to improve the retention and progression of secondary school students from economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, including girls and refugees.
Aryan is one of 34,000 vulnerable students who received a scholarship from 2022-2024.
All applicants had to take the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam and score 280 or above. For refugee students, the minimum score for scholarship eligibility was 240 for girls and 250 for boys.
Applications were reviewed by Kenya’s Community Scholars Advisory Committee at locations throughout the country. Committee members interviewed applicants with their guardians and visited shortlisted candidates at their homes to verify their needs.
“My mother has 5 children. In 2009, my father started losing his eyesight. In 2011, he became totally blind and deaf. In 2017, he developed a coughing disease. We could not raise money to take him to the hospital, and he died. We live with my mother, and she is not in good health.”
Young Kateri became the head of his household after losing his father and his mother became ill.
To earn money to support his family, he uproots tree trunks and burns them to sell as charcoal, but he wants to be able to attend school as well: “I took the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam, and I did well in science. In the future, I want to be a surgeon. I value human life, and I would like to save lives.”
Like Kateri, Rose suffered the loss of her father, and her family’s economic situation deteriorated. She, her two siblings and their mother moved from their middle-class neighborhood to the low-income residential estate of Kariobangi in northeastern Nairobi.
“I would walk a long distance to school because I had no bus fare. We were often sent home for lack of fees. When I received my Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam results, I was worried that my mother would not afford secondary school fees.”
Rose’s successful application for an Elimu scholarship meant that she could continue pursuing her education and get closer to fulfilling her dream of becoming an accountant.
Enabling disadvantaged children to reach their full potential
Without this support, children like Aryan, Kateri and Rose would not be able to advance beyond primary education despite their ambitions to learn more.
The Elimu scholarships are one component of the Kenya Primary Education Equity in Learning (KPEEL) program, which is made possible thanks to funding from the government of Kenya, $200 million from the World Bank, $107 million from GPE and $10 million from the LEGO Foundation for 2022-2026.
The scholarship component is implemented by the Ministry of Education and their lead agency, the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation, with the support of the Equity Group Foundation. It scales up the previous successful scholarship intervention of Kenya’s Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project from 2017-2023, which supported 18,000 students.
One of the KPEEL program’s main goals is to improve the retention of marginalized girls in upper primary education, as they tend to drop out of school earlier than boys in Kenya.
An assessment of the interventions funded by the World Bank and GPE revealed that the retention rate of girls from poor and vulnerable populations in grades 7 and 8 increased from 80% in 2021 to 91% in 2024, exceeding the original target of 85% by 2026.
By building on what works, Kenya is making access to education more equitable and supporting the most vulnerable students to fulfill their potential.
* Name has been changed.
Leave a comment
Your email address will not be published. All fields are required.