Co-operative Bank gives 655 students scholarships

Co-operative Bank Chief Executive Officer Gideon Muriuki says Societies will identify well-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds and forward the names to a regional forum where delegates debate and select the most deserving cases. [PHOTO: FILE/STANDARD]

NAIROBI: Co-operative Bank Group has announced a new annual intake of 655 bright needy students across the country to join its scholarship scheme.

The Co-op Bank Foundation Scholarship Scheme was launched in 2007 to provide financial support to poor but bright students pursuing secondary and university education.

Under the scholarship programme, the bank provides full school fees for the entire four years of secondary education while the university scholarships are awarded to the best performing students from each region.

Group chief Executive Gideon Muriuki said of the 655 new scholarships to the incoming Form One students this year, 420 will be awarded by the bank’s Regional Delegates’ Forums and the remaining 235 scholarships, at five per county, will be awarded by the county governments in all the 47 counties.

In a statement yesterday, Dr Muriuki said the bank would also be educating 119 students, selected from the top performing beneficiaries of the secondary school scholarships, through their entire university education.

Democratic systems

He noted that the bank has one of the most democratic systems of granting scholarships, done through delegates system. “Our students are selected at the grassroots level by Co-operative Societies across the country through a well-established national delegates system,” he noted.

“Co-operative Societies, who are the face of Kenya, identify well-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds and bring these names into a regional forum where delegates debate and select the most deserving cases,” he said.

“At the banks’ head office, our role is to process payments to the schools and monitor the students’ performance through the four years in secondary school,” he said. “The top 28 in the Form Four examination each year are granted an additional full scholarship for their university education.”

After this year’s intake, the Co-operative Bank will have provided free education to 3,472 young Kenyans, of whom 3,353 will have gone through secondary education and 119 university studies.

The scholarships are awarded on merit to promising but needy students from all regions of Kenya. When added to the number of students educated since the year 2007 when the Co-op Bank Foundation was started, the bank will in the next three years have provided education to over 5,000 bright students.

Muriuki observed that education is one of the most expensive items in household budgets and yet it has the highest potential to liberate people from poverty. “Unless corporate institutions and all people of goodwill come together to support initiatives within the education sector, brilliant but poor Kenyans will never realise their full potential,” he observed.

“Being poor does not mean that one is not bright nor has no potential. Majority of Kenyans holding positions of responsibility today were educated with loans from the co-operative movement. It is for this reason that the Co-operative Bank, being the premier co-operative institution in Kenya, has taken the lead in this area.”