Equity selects 33 interns to study at top global varsities

What you need to know:

Lender picks best KCSE performers in initiative to nurture future leaders.

Thirty-three scholars in the 2016 Equity Leaders Programme (ELP) have received admissions to study at top global universities during the Early Decisions application round.

The ELP is an internship programme that selects the top boy and girl in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) from every county where Equity Bank has a branch.

The objective of the programme is to support the gifted scholars access education in universities in Kenya and across the globe while equipping them with leadership skills.

Equity Group chief executive James Mwangi said of the 33 admissions — 18 boys and 15 girls — 18 are alumni of Wings to Fly programme.

“The objective is to develop a generation of servant leaders who will think globally, are inspired to fight poverty in the African continent, embrace sustainable development, improve living standards and coexist peacefully as a people while being fully committed to giving back to society,” he said.

Mr Mwangi said to date, the ELP has benefited 4,490 young people, 2,057 of who are Wings to Fly scholars that have joined various universities.

Universities with the highest number of ELP scholars include Harvard University (US), Africa Leadership Academy (South Africa), University of Toronto (Canada) and Duke University (US).

Others are University of Pretoria (South Africa), Yale University (US) and University of Pennsylvania (US).

In Kenya, universities with the highest number of ELP scholars are the University of Nairobi, Kenyatta University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology and Egerton University.

Among the popular courses most of the scholars chose to study are business and economics, pure and applied sciences, engineering and architecture, health sciences and art and social sciences.

Mr Mwangi said contrary to expectations that the best performing students would come from national schools, the trend has been scholars joining the programme are distributed across national, extra-county and county schools.