M-Pesa Academy to admit first 94 students next month

Safaricom’s M-Pesa Foundation Academy is set to admit its first lot of 94 Form One students mid next month, raising the bar in Kenya’s corporate social responsibility scene that has seen companies compete to offer scholarships for bright but poor learners.

The Sh3 billion education complex – styled along Starehe Boys’ Centre – plans to admit two needy but bright pupils from each of Kenya’s 47 counties, who will be offered a full four-year bursary covering all their education-related expenses.

The listed telco’s decision to set up its own boarding secondary school bucks a growing trend where Kenya’s corporate top dogs have been pumping billions of shillings to fund the education of top-performing, disadvantaged learners in public schools.

Equity Bank, Co-op Bank, KCB Bank, Family Bank, ARM Cement, KenolKobil, and Nestlé are among companies that are currently taking in for sponsorship pupils from poor backgrounds who excelled in the recently released KCPE exams.

Safaricom says the selection of learners to join the M-Pesa Foundation Academy is ongoing.

It has already hired teaching and non-teaching staff for the school located near Mang’u village in Thika, Kiambu County.

“The M-Pesa Foundation Academy will be opened officially in February 2016, when it will take the first Form One students,” said the Safaricom head of corporate responsibility Sanda Ojiambo in an interview.

“The teachers as well as the administration and support staff have already been recruited. We are at an advanced stage in completing the facilities,” she added.

Safaricom’s upcoming school joins a short list of companies that sponsor their own schools including Mumias Sugar’s Booker School, Chemelil Academy run by Chemelil Sugar, and Karuturi Primary, funded by flower firm Sher Karuturi.

The sponsored schools however charge subsidised fees, unlike the M-Pesa Academy that will be offering full bursaries to bright but poor students.

The M-Pesa Foundation Academy is set on a sprawling 50-acre piece of land. Students admitted to M-Pesa Foundation Academy will not pay even a cent of the educational and boarding fees.

“The students will be on full scholarship and will have all their related educational expenses covered over the four years,” she said.

The school is owned and bankrolled by the M-Pesa Foundation, a charity organisation established by Safaricom in 2010.

READ: Equity, Co-op and KCB spend billions on students’ fees

The trust is an autonomous entity run by interest income generated from M-Pesa’s multi-billion shilling deposits held at KCB Bank and Commercial Bank of Africa.

M-Pesa Holding Company Ltd holds all interest income from the M-Pesa deposits in trust. As a non-bank institution Safaricom is not allowed to earn interest on the M-Pesa deposits.

Admission to the M-Pesa Foundation Academy is not only pegged on academic performance and financial need but other attributes such as leadership and entrepreneurship skills, critical thinking and community service.

Equity Bank’s Wings to Fly scholarship programme last week announced it will finance secondary school education for 2,000 needy but bright learners who scored more than 350 marks in last year’s KCPE.

It is a Sh9 billion ($101 million) kitty with the backing of other players such as MasterCard Foundation, USAID, UKaid, and the German Reconstruction Bank (KfW).

KCB Bank plans to spend Sh100 million to sponsor 240 academically gifted students from poor backgrounds who sat for KCPE examinations last year and are set to join secondary school next month.

Swiss food giant Nestlé said it will spend Sh3.3 million to pay school fees for 13 bright and needy Kenyan students enrolling in high school this year — targeted at coffee farming communities where it sources coffee beans.