About The Program

The Deloraine Community Child Development Scholarship Program will operate in Deloraine and surrounding communities where the poor make up nearly 80% of the population. In these areas children have little access to education due to a high rate of poverty, shortage of schools, or because they reside far away from schools. The program will enable up to 5 children to access education in high school or universities/colleges every year. These students are from the poor families who cannot afford their schooling; over 60% of them are girls who are always in danger of dropping out of the schools.

These children tend to drop out of the schools early because:

• The cost of education is high when compared to the income of their families, who are poor. Typical costs include school fees, school maintenance, insurance, stationeries, and uniforms, most of which have to be paid at the beginning of each school year.
• The population of the children per family is high and beyond control, making it difficult to educate children, as the little money they earn per day goes towards one or two meals a day, sometimes none.
• Children themselves are often relied upon to bring home income that can help to support their family, however meager it may be. One of the activities these poor children undertake is illegal charcoal burning, which they sell to the neighboring town or to immediate buyers. The poorest families cannot afford to go without this additional income and after a short amount of time, the children have a hard time retaining what they learned in school. Many remain illiterate, like a lot of their parents.

Criteria For Selecting Children

DCCDP scholarship program will select children who are bright and come from poor families. Orphans will be considered first. For students joining the university, DCCDP will only support children who have been selected for a regular mode of studying (partially sponsored by the Government through HELB-high education loan board). Students selected for medicine, law, engineering, piloting, science, and business courses will be given top priority, provided that they come from the most disadvantaged families. Community elders, area chief, school principal, and the education officer will recommend, by writing, that this child needs support. The same is applicable to children joining high schools but they need to score 350 marks or above (out of 500 marks) in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education national exam. Support will only be on-going if the student performs strongly. Anyone dropping will be warned first and then support will be removed if they don’t improve.

Expected Result

By providing scholarships, DCCDP reduces the costs of education for families with many children, enabling parents to send all their children to school. Education will enhance their social standing, economic independence, and improve their decision-making abilities. Thus they will be able to contribute more to education for future generations.

DCCDP’s scholarships do not pay for all of the educational costs of each child. Parents are still required to pay for their children’s personal effects.

The long-term support of DCCDP will change the family and the child’s attitude towards education.

Parents/Community Contribution

DCCDP will not support all fees required by the children. Parents will still provide their children’s basic needs, including personal effects and transportation. DCCDP will only cover school fees for high school and university. DCCDP will support up to half the amount of school fees required for high school and up to the remaining amount of the university, fees students need after the government payment. University students will be provided with living costs during their time at the university as well.

The community will raise funds to help pay for related fees by calling harambees, family contributions, seeking bursaries from the government, agricultural and business activities, etc.

Estimated Budget

The program will support students in high schools through to university/colleges. The school fees structure for public schools in Kenya (national and county level) is the maximum of 66,424 ksh ($596.02 USD) per year. Day schools charge up to 22,244 ksh ($199.60 USD) per year.

The government of Kenya subsidizes this amount by 12,870 ksh ($115.48 USD) for the day and the boarding schools. Thus parents are required to pay 53,554 ksh ($480.54 USD) for the boarding schools and 9,374 ksh ($84.11 USD) for the day schools. Fees are spread over the year in a ratio of 50:30:20 for the three terms of the year.

Cost Breakdown

Private school fees vary from school to school. The fees range between 65,000 ksh to 70,000 ksh ($583.25 to $628.11 USD) per term. Thus sponsoring a child in a private school will cost a maximum of 210,000 ksh ($1884.33 USD) per child per year. This amount includes uniforms, books, meals, boarding, etc. Private schools are preferable to public schools as they provide better education and are more disciplined. Many of them are managed by churches and organizations. Great examples include Vanessa Grant Girls High School (manage by Vanessa Grant Trust) and the Rongai Boys High School (manage by Lassalian Brothers under the Catholic Church). We encourage sponsoring a child in a boarding school where they can concentrate and receive a better education.

The cost of university sponsorship's varies depending on the university and the course undertaken. Some courses are very expensive and good. Courses like medicine, law, piloting, and engineering are very expensive but more marketable.

University courses cost a maximum of 100,000 ksh ($897.30 USD) per semester and one year has two academic semesters. Thus, one year costs a maximum of 200,000 ksh ($1794.60 USD) per child per year.

Good universities in Kenya offering these courses are the University of Nairobi (public), Strathmore University (private under Catholic), and United States International University (private), among others.