Co-op Bank scholarships: Hundreds of destitute students set to benefit

The Co-operative Bank is set to sponsor over 600 bright but needy students. Recently, across the media, cries of help from students who cannot join high school for lack of school fees have been experienced. Whereas the Kenyan government has a policy of 100% transition into secondary schools for pupils who sit for their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE), this has not been possible as a majority of pupils from poor backgrounds remain locked out.

As part of its collective social responsibility and to help solve the problem, the co-op bank issued a statement.

“We are pleased to announce the successful completion of the selection of beneficiaries of this year’s annual intake of 655 gifted but needy students from across the country to join the Cooperative Bank Foundation Scholarship Scheme in 2020,” said Co-op Bank‘s Group chief executive officer Gideon Muriuki.

The C.E.O further noted that of the 655 new scholarships to Form One students, 420 had been identified by the bank’s Regional Delegates’ Forums and the remaining 235 scholarships, at 5 per county, awarded to County Governments in all the 47 counties.

For the 2020, the cooperative bank foundation has sponsored 655 Form One beneficiaries. The sponsorship stands as one of the largest secondary education scholarship schemes in Kenya at the moment and approximately sponsors students to a tune of KSh. 155 million every year.

“Our scholarship beneficiaries are selected at the grassroots level by Co-operative Societies across the country through a well-established national delegates system. Cooperative 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. At the bank’s head office, our role is to process payments to the schools and monitor the students’ performance through the four years in secondary school,” Dr. Muriuki said.

Furthermore the bank is already educating a total of 177 students, selected from the top performing beneficiaries of the secondary school scholarships, through their entire university education.

Following the 2020 intake, the Co-operative Bank will have provided full education sponsorship to 7,640 deserving Kenyans, of whom 7,332 will have gone through secondary education and 308 university studies. The scholarships are awarded on merit to gifted but needy students from all regions of Kenya.

Dr. Muriuki also noted that the bank will intensify its investments in sponsoring education for the needy as way to help liberate Kenyans from poverty. “Unless corporate institutions and all people of goodwill come together to support initiatives within the education sector, gifted but needy Kenyans will never realize their full potential,” he said. “Being needy does not mean that one isn’t talented or has no potential. A large number of Kenyans holding positions of responsibility today were educated with loans from the Co-operative Movement.” The Cooperative Bank scholarships program was launched in 2007.

The bank provides full school fees scholarships for the entire four years of secondary education.  Interestingly, the bank grants an additional full scholarship for university education to the top 28 in the Form Four examination each year.