Jubilee Insurance has allocated KSh 40 million over the next four years to support 168 students in accessing high school education
- The scholarship, funded by Jubilee Children’s Fund, covers full high school education and supplementary needs such as school uniforms
- The Jubilee Children’s Fund has enrolled 85 additional students in 2023, while the first cohort of beneficiaries will sit for the national secondary examinations this year
Jubilee Insurance has allocated KSh 40 million over the next four years to support 168 students in accessing high school education.
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The scholarship, funded by Jubilee Children’s Fund, covers full high school education and supplementary needs such as school uniforms.
The Jubilee Children’s Fund has enrolled 85 additional students in 2023, while the first cohort of beneficiaries will sit for the national secondary examinations this year.
Challenges facing access to secondary education in Kenya
Access to education is a basic human right. However, many children still do not have the opportunity to learn especially if they live in poverty.
A 2022 UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report estimated that 1.8 million children aged between six and 18, who are supposed to be in school, have either dropped out or never been in school at all.
The report further noted that Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region with the most children excluded from education. Lack of education funding keeps thousands of children away from school.
This makes it difficult for families to break away from the poverty cycle.
Education is a critical component of a country’s human capital that enables economies to move the value chain beyond manual tasks or simple production processes.
It facilitates the transfer of knowledge which triggers creativity and technological advances. Education also boosts a country’s capacity to create new knowledge, products, and technologies.
Jubilee Holdings Chairman Nizar Juma (l) and CEO Julius Kipngetich (r).Promoting access to education will spur creative thinking while driving independence and long-term economic growth.
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While commenting about the 2023 scholarship, Jubilee Insurance Group CEO Dr Julius Kipngetich noted that responsible business and investment are critical in enabling companies to achieve transformational change in the communities and economy.
“It is becoming increasingly crucial for companies to increase their focus on sustainable and ethical investments. As we mark 85 Years of business success, our company has taken a proactive approach to playing a positive role in society. They centred one of our key focus areasThey centred one of our key focus areasThey centred one of our key focus areas on driving access to education. We believe empowering a child with education will positively shape their future and support business and economic continuity. An educated population also has a higher income and reduced dependence on public assistance programs,” said Dr Kipngetich.
Access to education and healthcare access are some of the major issues that affect children from underprivileged families.
The Jubilee Children’s Fund also runs three additional sponsorship initiatives, namely Eye Project, Operation Ear Drop and Arms and Limbs.
These alleviate health hardships by supporting children’s access to eye care, ENT, and prosthetics for children with broken limbs. The Fund has to date spent KES 838 million to help children access prosthetic limbs and undergo ENT surgeries.
Interventions supporting children from needy families must undertake a sustainable and holistic approach to deliver impact. Jubilee Insurance Group Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications Caroline Ndungu noted that over and above investing towards education access, the Jubilee Children Fund also helps children access medical care.
Ensuring that children are in good health is the first step towards helping them attain an education.
“The Jubilee Children’s Fund is structured as an endowment trust drawing its funding from one-days company profits and staff’s one-day salary contribution which is matched by the company. This sustainable approach supports the different activities while ensuring project continuity. We will continue to leverage our rich brand history to proactively identify and address issues affecting the communities we serve,” said Caroline.
In a separate story, Jubilee Insurance recently partnered with the United States International University–Africa (USIU-Africa) to launch a regional mentorship program that will help students better prepare for the workplace.
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The program is expected to impact 100 students from various disciplines this year with a targeted number of 300 students over the next three years.
The program will be implemented by the USIU-Africa Placement’s Career Services team and will train 50 Jubilee Insurance staff members from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania on mentoring skills to support their engagement as mentors to USIU-Africa students. The trained staff will be on-boarded into a formal and structured program that will run for one year.
For years, the job market has relied on tertiary and university institutions to produce ready-to-work graduates for the job market. However, only 40 per cent of the students who complete technical training find employment. The high unemployment rate is largely attributed to lack of employability skills among graduates.
Many companies find that most young professionals lack basic soft skills required alongside technical competencies to succeed in the workplace.
The World Economic Forum indicates that critical thinking and problem-solving top the list of skills employers believe will grow in prominence for the next five years.
