Freshers line up for registration at Kisii University [Denish Ochieng, Standard]
Kakamega and Bungoma counties have the highest number of beneficiaries of students loans, according to the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) report for this year.
The government is spending Sh14.4 billion to fund 354,069 students in public universities
The report indicates that counties in the North Eastern and Coastal regions got the least number of beneficiaries.
The Helb report shows that Kakamega County ranks top, with 23,967 students in public universities getting the loan in the year 2020/2021.
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It is followed by Bungoma County with 18,116 students while Nakuru is third with 16,888 students and Homa Bay fourth with 16, 811 learners.
****Kisii, which has 16,753 students in universities, closes the top five counties with highest number of learners in the universities.
Bomet has 13,204, Siaya has 13,141, Kisumu 12,969 while Nairobi has 12, 210 students.
HELB Chief Executive Officer Charles Ringera said the fund has been working with counties to develop revolving funds to support students from their regions.
"We have been giving them analyses of courses being studied by these students," he said, adding that this enables county governments to use the data for the planning purposes.
Other counties that have over 10,000 students in Kenyan universities today are Makueni (11,609), Kericho (11,885), Kiambu (11,285), Meru (11,039), Uasin Gishu (11,198), Kitui (10,714) and Migori (10,476).
Machakos, Trans Nzoia, Nyamira, Busia, Nandi and Muranga counties have about 9,000 students each in universities today.
Patrick Ndoho, an economist, said the data is important when making human capital development.
He, however, said that a more comparative analysis needs to be done to understand how important the data is to the respective counties.
Ndoho said its important to analyse if the numbers match with growth in counties.
HELB report reveals that Wajir County has 62 students, the lowest number of learners in universities.
Garissa has 71, Mandera 72, Tana River 272 while Isiolo closes the bottom five with 268 students.
Lamu County has 284 students, Marsabit 523, Samburu 863, closing the category of counties with less that 1,000 students in universities.
