Brawl in the house over foreign scholarships

By David Ochami

Higher Education minister William Ruto says just 326 Kenyans have been sent abroad to study in university on foreign scholarships but MPs accuse him of concealing details of ethnic and regional bias behind the awards.

According to Samburu East Raphael Letimalo no one from his constituency has been awarded a scholarship to study abroad in the last ten years and questions the criterion used to award.

And Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo argues that "these scholarships are a
preserve of the minister (in charge of Higher Education) and alleges that in his constituency beneficiaries of scholarships have literally been pulled from the plane as they prepared to fly out when their scholarships "suddenly disappeared."

Kilonzo also alleged that in recent times a minister caused 40 foreign scholarships to be awarded his constituents. He did not elaborate.

Ruto was ordered to publish a breakdown of recipients of these scholarships including constituencies of origin and course awarded to enable MPS to validate or invalidate claims of bias in awards.

The list published by the minister on Wednesday shows that in the last three years Rift Valley province was awarded 51 scholarships, North Eastern received 43, Nyanza 47, Westen 38, Central 40 with Coast and Nairobi receiving 28 places each.

He said foreign governments offer full or partial scholarships and
added that the Kenyan authorities consider qualification, affirmative
action, gender balance, age and other merit when distributing them to Kenyans.

He said the following countries offered scholarships to Kenya in the
last three years: Cuba, Czech Republic, the UK, India, New Zealnd, Russia, Turkey, Serbia, Egypt and Venezuela.

Other destinations are Pakistan, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine.