The Star – Fresh, Independent, Different
BY DOMINIC WABALA
Kenyan students under scholarship in Morocco have appealed to the government to come o their rescue after their host suspended aid. The students, pursuing masters and doctorate degree courses, through the Association of Kenya Students in Morocco (AKSIM) now want the Kenyan government to offer assistance to enable them complete their education.
“First and foremost we want to inform your offices that AMCI (the Moroccan Agency in charge of foreign students) is facing financial constraints due to the high number of student on scholarship from different countries present here in Morocco. They have therefore suspended their scholarship allocation to students pursuing masters as well as doctorate studies. As if not enough, they have delayed scholarship payment to students,” the AKSIM chairman Albert Siminyu Otemba said in a letter sent to Ministry of Foreign Affairs official P.S. Wamoto.
The student all, of who are on Moroccan scholarship claim that the US$ 88 (Ksh 7,304) paid every two months is too little for ninety five percent of the Kenyan students who depend on it to pay rent paying rent addition to the Kenyan bursary they receive.
The students receive the Kenyan bursary every January and July but they claim it is four months late.They say that the Kenyan embassy in Morocco has informed them. that the funds have not been disbursed from Kenya.
“How can we be expected to be the Kenyan ambassadors yet the government has totally ignored our pleas forcing some of us to sleep on the streets because we were thrown out by landlords for not paying rent? The cost of living in Morocco has increased and some of us are sent out of classes because we don’t have full school materials,” AKSIM treasurer Eric Okoth asked. The students have accused the government of ignoring their plight and appealed for an increment in the bursary allocated to them.
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