Governor Gladys Wanga has assured Homa Bay residents that no student will miss transitioning to secondary school for lack of school fees.

This follows the approval of Ksh130 million to fund a new Fins to Swim Governor’s Scholarship Fund and the revamped school bursary schemes.

On Friday in Karachuonyo West ward, during the Thanksgiving ceremony for the area MCA Samuel Lieta, Wanga said a total of Ksh Ksh30 million will support the fully funded scholarship kitty.

The other Ksh100 million will be disbursed to all 40 wards for bursaries and will benefit about 20,000 students, where each ward will get about 500 Bursary slots of Ksh5,000 each.

The beneficiaries for the scholarship kitty will include students who will be admitted to national, extra-county, or county secondary schools and must have scored 350 marks in KCPE.

“We are targetting top scorers in the KCPE national examination from confirmed poor backgrounds, who will be offered a full scholarship to join their dream secondary schools,” Wanga said.

“My administration, together with the County Assembly, has set aside a total of Ksh30million for the Governor Fins to Swim program and another Ksh100million to all our 40 wards to help pay school fees for our children in various learning institutions,” the county chief said.

The scholarship program will cater to the total school fees, basic needs, and all the requirements, including pocket money, and other basic necessities to the beneficiaries from form one up to form four.

“We are looking out for special groups, for instance children with disability and teenage mothers who will be able to return to school.

She further revealed that an additional of Ksh 80 million has also been set aside for the school feeding program in favour of all the 886 EYE centers in our county.

“We are going to seek partnerships to help us sustain this program whose ĺmain objective is to enable us to retain many children in schools,” she said.

A steering Committee for the Bursary fund disbursement has already been formed and is led by CECM in charge of Education Martin Opere.

“This is a new dawn on management Bursary and scholarship funds in Homa Bay County, which will be transparent, corruption free process,” she said.

According to Wanga, the funds will ensure that the beneficiaries do not miss out on their studies for a lack of school fees.

She said that the funds are geared at enhancing the retention of students, giving better literacy outcomes for the county, and fighting poverty through investment in education.

According to the Ministry of Education calender 2023, term one will take 13 weeks and will begin on January 23 and until April 21, while term two, which will also take the exact duration will start from 8 until August 11, 2023.

The shortest learning duration, term three, will take ten weeks and will start from August 28 until November 3, 2023.

“We all know that the current economy is not all that favorable and we do not want to leave any of our children out of school and that is why as a government, we must chip in to offer our support to the bright, needy, disabled, child mothers and even orphans available support to enable them to achieve their dreams through paying their school fees,” she said.