Needy students stranded at home after delay in Sakaja’s scholarships

As the third term comes to an end, the affected learners will likely not take their end-of-term examinations, yet they need the results as it is a precondition to qualify for allocation of the funds next year.

A number of parents and guardians who had no option but to turn to the media to express their plight claimed that the high cost of living had already incapacitated them, and that paying arrears of up to Sh40,000 was impossible.

“Dear parent/guardian. Your child has a fees balance of Sh48,810. Kindly clear by Saturday 4/10/2025, to avoid learning interruptions,” some of the messages from a school head reads.

Some schools went ahead to inform parents to expect their children to be sent home should they not clear the balance within the given time.

“Dear parent/guardian. Make urgent arrangements to clear school fees for your daughter immediately. Otherwise your daughter will come home tomorrow to collect the balance,” the message reads.

The parents and guardians are worried that the schools have asked them to settle the arrears despite receiving letters of confirmation by the county that they had qualified for certain amounts of bursaries from the kitty.

“The student pursuing education in your school benefitted from scholarship funds with the Nairobi City County Government. This therefore is to inform you that the bursary processing is in progress and we are waiting for the release of funds from Treasury to facilitate the payment by the opening of third term 2025,” the letter dated July 9 from Nairobi County Education sector reads.

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As school heads are grappling with the delayed disbursement of school capitation funds from the national government, the county government has also failed to honour its promise to process cheques to cover the third term and outstanding arrears.

In reaction to the matter, the Chief Officer in charge of Education Ahmed Abdi claimed that the county had reached out to the schools asking them to be patient a bit with them as they attempt to unlock the funds.

“We are paying the money the second week of October. We are committed to supporting students who are depending on scholarships and that is why we have reached out to all the schools not to send students home,” Mr Abdi said.

The Chief Officer also assured parents and guardians that their children will not miss the exams.

The issue of delay in bursary allocation was one of the grounds that Nairobi Members of County Assembly had indicated in their failed attempt to impeach Governor Sakaja from office.

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The MCAs had claimed that the governor was sabotaging education for needy students who were depending on bursaries and scholarships for their survival in institutions.

However, the governor had alleged that the move by the Controller of Budget Dr Margaret Nyakang’o to stop the approval of county bursaries had interfered with the management of the funds.

Dr Nyakang’o had said that the county governments overstepped their mandates in supporting students’ learning in universities, secondary and primary, when their jurisdictions is limited to pre-primary and polytechnics.

“Part 1 of the Fourth Schedule under Section 16 designates universities, tertiary educational institutions, primary schools, special education, secondary schools, and special education institutions as functions of the national government,” part of the letter Dr Nyakang’o reads.

However, despite governors being given the green light to formulate mechanisms that would enable them to withdraw such funds to support needy students, this has not been felt in Nairobi County.