Kenyan students stuying in Germany on scholarships seems to be going through hard times if a protest message that they shared is anything to go by.  The full text of the message one of the students issued is available below and it first appeared on Wahome Thuku’s wall.

Unpaid Scholarship fees by Kenyan Government has placed students in a difficult situation, They threatened to go demonstrate.

Statement read: “I am on full DAAD scholarship in Berlin, Germany. However, there are many scholars from Kenya who are on a joint DAAD/Kenya Government scholarship. For these students, the DAAD pays 100 Euros while the Kenya government pays 900 Euros per month.

 
Whereas the DAAD keeps its part of the bargain by remitting their portion on time (that is before 30th of every month), the government of Kenya always delays to remit her portion. The organ charged with overseeing this is National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI) I hear they have changed to National Research Fund (NRF). It pays the students through the Kenyan Embassy in Berlin.

 

The ambassador is one Dr. Josiah Magut.
The delays sometimes go as long as 3 months yet this is a program that was well thought out and funds are set aside to run it in the budget. It is not that the NACOSTI (or NRF) have to go looking for money from treasury (or wherever) every month to remit to the students. It is part of Kenya’s vision 2030. These persistent delays make students lead pathetic life in Germany. What with the pressure to meet deadlines in writing, and conducting their experiments.

 
The students have tried to resolve this problem in vain. They have held talks with the ambassador uncountable times. They even raised the issue with the president when he visited Germany last year but nothing has changed. In any case, they had a long spell of waiting in December just a few months after talking to the president.

 
As I write this to you, the students are yet to be paid the stipend for the month of March and they have no idea when it will come. Yet they have fees and rent to pay on top of other needs. The Kenyan Embassy staff here also seem as lost about the issue as students, they are unbelievably clueless!
The students have decided to change tact. They are organising for a demonstration on the 31st of March in front of the embassy.

 
Some of these students even had two or more scholarship opportunities to choose from and they settled for this particular one on the strength of the sweet talking government officials in Nairobi.

 

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Do not miss our update on the ministry of education’s response to the suffering of students on scholarship to Germany!