Effectiveness of Constituency Bursary Fund Disbursement Strategies

Secondary school education plays a key role in providing the youth with opportunities to acquire human capital that will enable them to pursue higher education and to improve their skills leading to higher labour market productivity. The majority of children in Sub-Saharan Africa do not make it to secondary school. Analysis of Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) shows that two-thirds of all countries with secondary GER of 40% and below are in Africa. Financing secondary education is a great challenge to both governments and households. Secondary education in most of the African countries tend to be the most neglected, receiving on average 15-20% of state financial resources. Household burden in financing secondary education has therefore remained high. Although secondary school education accessibility has posed a tremendous challenge to many bright students who come from poor background, the establishment of the policy on disbursement of Secondary Education Bursary Fund (SEBF) through Constituency Bursary Committee (CBC) in 2003 was aimed at decentralization and empowerment of communities in Kenya.