Uasin Gishu scholarships mess: 202 Kenyan students in Finland face deportation

Hundreds of students from Uasin Gishu County who are currently studying in Finland are facing deportation after the county failed to remit tuition fees for their second semester as per the scholarship agreement.

Students in Finland who spoke to Citizen TV said they have been given two days to vacate their hostels that have also not been paid.

In September last year, the county government of Uasin Gishu sent 202 students for a scholarship programme in Helsinki, Finland.

Sixty-seven students were admitted to Laurea University of Applied Sciences to pursue degrees in nursing.

Twenty-five students were further admitted to Jyvaskylla university to undertake a degree in nursing while 111 students are in Tampere University Finland.

Before leaving the country for Finland, their parents had contributed school fees worth Ksh. 1.19 million to the fund that MCAs now claim has been operating like a personal account.

Each parent further sent Ksh.100,000 for air tickets and three months accomodation amounting to Ksh.80,000. A Ksh.30,000 insurance for each student was also deposited to the account operated by Uasin Gishu county employees.

However so far, the county has only remitted school fees for the first semester with students given till Monday to vacate their hostels. The county assembly of Uasin Gishu that handed its investigations yesterday said monies meant for the student was depleted.

“We stayed in the hostel for three months. We were told rent is over yet we paid for six months...so they told us to go out of the houses so we don’t understand,” said a student.

To make matters worse, the students particularly in Laurea University are now staring at deportation from their institution.

The county government of uasin gishu is said to have paid Ksh.550,000 for the first semester for each student yet the learners had paid the full academic year.

In a letter seen by Citizen TV, Sanna Partamies, a director in Laurea University of Applied Sciences sent a circular saying “...from beginning of March, the teaching for groups Nursing Lohja 200-65, Nursing Tikkurila 200-66, nursing Porvoo 200-67, nursing Otaniemi 200-68, and Physiotherapy Otaniemi 200-69 will be put on hold until the tuition fees for second semester are paid.”

The university went ahead to note that if Eduexcellence Ltd. has not received the tuition fees for the second semester for these groups by March 31st 2023, Laurea University of Applied Sciences will decide to terminate your right to study and end the programmes.

The letter further added that the information of the terminated right to study will automatically flow to the Finnish Immigration Service through electronic systems, which will be followed by cancelling of the residence permits. This means the students will have no option other than return to Kenya.

The County Assembly of Uasin Gishu established that the process was flawed and that parents were forced to sell their hard earned properties to raise the money to send their children abroad for studies.

Three county officials Joseph Maritim, Joel Ruto and Meshak Rono have been identified by the county assembly to have been at the centre of the scam and recommended for investigations by the dci and EACC.