Co-op Bank sponsors 655 students

Co-operative Bank Group MD Gideon Muriuki.

About 655 students from across the country will benefit from Co-operative Bank’s scholarship programme.

This is after the lender’s board of directors announced the selection of the beneficiaries of this year’s Co-operative Bank Foundation Scholarship Scheme.

The 2020 intake pushes the tally of students that have gone through the lender’s sponsorship to 7,640.

Ninety-five per cent of the beneficiaries (7,332), were secondary school students, with 308 in university.

Co-operative Bank spends about Sh155 million every year on the scholarship programme that aims to give gifted but needy students an opportunity to advance their education.     

Of the 655 new scholarships to Form One students, 420 were identified by the bank’s regional delegates’ forums and the remaining 235 awarded at five per county in all the 47 counties, said Co-operative Bank Group Managing Director Gideon Muriuki (pictured).

“Our scholarship beneficiaries are selected at the grassroots level by co-operative societies across the country through a well-established national delegates system,” said Mr Muriuki.

“At the bank’s head office, our role is to process payments to the schools and monitor the students’ performance. The top 28 in the Form Four examination each year are granted an additional full scholarship for their university education.”

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

“Unless corporate institutions and all people of goodwill come together to support initiatives within the education sector, gifted but needy Kenyans will never realise their full potential,” said Muriuki.