The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Kisii County Executive Secretary Joseph Makabe has challenged Kisii County Government to ensure bursaries allocated to total orphans by the Ward Bursary Committees are increased based on the beneficiaries' school fees needs.
Makabe lamented that in the past total orphans have been getting a raw deal after the bursary committees awarded them peanuts in terms of bursaries without taking into consideration the school fees arrears they owed their schools, making it difficult for them to be in school due to huge fees balances.
Speaking on Tuesday at Gusii Stadium during the launch of the Kisii County Education Bursary Fund by Kisii Governor James Ongwae, the teachers' spokesman challenged those distributing the bursaries to look at the school fees needs of individual applicants with emphasis on the partial and total orphans to avoid giving allocations which do not impact positively on the beneficiaries' needs.
"If today a total orphan is awarded Sh2,000 as bursary without looking at the school fees balances and the burden of raising the balances by the orphan, will it make sense to the beneficiary as it will leave him or her out of school over fees problem," stated Makabe.
He appealed to the county government to seek for alternative school fees assistance to total orphans with huge school fees demands to supplement the bursaries as part of the efforts to ensure the affected beneficiaries do not drop out of school for lack of school fees.