PAYTHIAS MUTALE Lusaka
THE Ministry of Education has awarded scholarships worth K13 million to 395 female learners under the Keeping Girls in School and Beyond Initiative (KGS).
Speaking in an interview, KGS coordinator Willie Kaputo said the scholarships are for the 2025/2026 academic year.
“These scholarships are tenable at 86 various public and grant-aided institutions of higher learning across the country at an estimated annual cost of K13 million,” he said.
He said 284 applications recommended are under science programmes while 111 are under art-based programmes, representing 71.9 percent and 28.1 percent respectively.
“Out of these, 377 applicants are from rural areas and 18 are from urban areas, representing 95.4 percent and 4.6 percent respectively, while six are certificate courses, 258 are diploma courses and 131 are degree programmes,” he said.
Mr Kaputo said the KGS component of the Girls’ Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihoods for Human Capital (GEWEL 2) project provides boarding fees, education grants and other support services.
“This is meant to increase access, participation and completion rates of secondary school education among girls identified from Social Cash Transfer (SCT) households,” he said.
Mr Kaputo said more than 178,000 girls have so far benefited from the KGS initiative since inception of the GEWEL project in 2016 out of which over 30,000 girls have successfully completed Grade 12 but lack dedicated financial support to enable them to transition to tertiary level education.
He said it is against this background that the Ministry of Education started providing funding in 2022 to establish a scholarship programme to support KGS girls to enable them to access tertiary education.
“Since inception of the KGS tertiary education scholarship programme in 2022, a total of 2,652 KGS beneficiaries have been awarded scholarships to pursue their tertiary education. Out of these, 132 have so far completed their studies,” he said.
