Prudential Insurance through their Prudence Foundation has announced a Ksh. 12 million donation that is meant to support 205 students pays for their tertiary education.
The donation, which was presented to the Kenya Education Fund was drawn from Prudential’s Covid Recovery Fund. It will finance the first year of tertiary learning every year, starting this year, for the next three years, with beneficiaries drawn from all around the country. The beneficiaries will include students from financially disadvantaged households and those whose parents and guardians suffered a loss of income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 Recovery Fund was initiated by Prudential in 2020 to support approved charitable and community projects that address the immediate social and economic impacts of the pandemic. Education was among the worst affected sectors in Kenya, as students stayed out of school for nearly seven months, and upon reopening had to contend with adjusted calendars. Meanwhile, many families struggled to keep their children in school following layoffs, furloughs, and company closures. The situation is further worsened by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and the impact of climate change. Already, over 2 million students aged 4 – 17 have been out of school since 2021, with the number projected to increase in coming days.
It is against this background that Prudential sought to alleviate the pain for students joining tertiary institutions, whose admission is relatively costlier when compared to the formative levels of school.
Prudential has an ongoing partnership with the KEF that started back in 2014. This partnership has seen over 180 students receive full scholarships for their secondary school and university education, supported by previous donation from the Covid Recovery Fund. In 2021, the partnership printed and distributed over 16,000 revision books to learners countrywide which are still being used by students to date.
Prudential Kenya CEO, Gwen Kinisu, had this to say, “Every year, over 200,000 students qualify for placement in universities and other tertiary education institutions, but thousands of these brilliant students miss out on the opportunity due to poverty. It really is unfortunate for students to struggle through primary and secondary school education, and just when they are about to join college – where many lives are transformed – they meet financial roadblocks that prevent them from proceeding. The situation worsened after the Covid pandemic with many breadwinners losing their livelihoods. At Prudential, we found this to be a disheartening situation and that is why we have been teaming up with Kenya Education Fund to support some of these needy cases.”