We operate in a changing world and no more so than in Kenya. This will see a new competence-based education system from January 2023 which will see children spending six years at secondary school rather than four in the current system.
You can see full details of these changes here.
This offers some significant benefit to children, who will be able to study subjects more suitable to their interests and abilities, such as Sports, Performing Arts or Visual Arts.
Others can focus on Social Sciences (Languages and Literature, Humanities and Business Studies) or STEM subjects (Pure & Applied Sciences, Technical and Engineering, and Technology Studies).
For those sponsored students returning in January into Form 2, 3 and 4, there will be no change. They will continue and complete their schooling under the current system. And their scholarships will continue unaffected.
But for those starting in Form One it does bring many uncertainties. We expect that families will have to fund an extra two years of secondary school, adding to the levels of hardship felt by many who merely earn a subsistence living.
After two years where the school fees set by the Ministry of Education have been unchanged, we are expecting an increase in the fees charged by each school. As schools return to a normal calendar school year, we are seeing more and more schools charging ‘extras’ above and beyond the amounts set out by the Ministry.
And we wait to see how schools cope with the transition. Will they have the classrooms, teachers and other resources in place?
So we have decided to pause new scholarships for the year. We will not offer scholarships to students entering Form One in the new year, so that we can see the impact and consequences of these changes.
Plans for 2023
We will focus our on-going support on the 300 students that we have sponsored so far in the next stage of their career.
- For those in Form 2, 3 and 4, this means continuing their scholarship.
And we will continue to run local or national workshops to fill the gaps in the children’s’ school education.
Even under the new system, school teaching remains a quite traditional ‘talk and chalk’ approach. Our workshops seek to cover the extra ‘life skills’ such as personal responsibility, goal setting, problem solving and taking action. We think these are vital to being successful in today’s world.
- For those who have completed secondary school and received offers for university or college, we will continue to offer emergency financial and laptop loans where students are otherwise unable to take up or complete their further studies.
- For those who complete their university or college studies, life remains difficult. The Kenyan economy means that finding meaningful work is a real challenge. We now have a Facebook group for our student alumni and we will extend our efforts to support them through workshops to help find work – topics like CV writing, interviewing skills, network building and finding opportunities.
- And for those who do not go on to university or college, they will have access to these same workshops PLUS sessions specifically about setting up their own venture. This will include budgeting and financial planning.
For sponsors and supporters
This means we’d love the sponsors of children returning to school in January in Form 2, 3 and 4 to continue their donations and we’ll be sending out exact details once the Ministry of Education announce the fees for 2023.
And supporters and sponsors of children who have now completed school then we’d welcome your continued support.
Ways in which your donations will help include:
| £10 | enables us to buy sanitary packs for a sponsored girl keeping her in school throughout the year |
| £25 | allows us to provide a loan of a second-hand laptop |
| £50 | means another child can attend a one-day workshop to learn life skills or setting up a business |
| £100 | helps build our student loan fund giving emergency help to complete a university or college course |
| £200 | funds one child to attend our next national three-day workshop |
And you can join us
If you’d like to come out to Kenya to meet the students we support, see the impact that your support has on their lives and perhaps take some time to explore parts of Kenya, then we are organising …
- for a group to trek to the summit of Mount Kenya in June/July 2023 together with some of our sponsored students, and
- we’d love for you to join us for our next three-day workshop in Nairobi in December 2023.
If you are interested, please ask for more information.