The Wings To Fly Programme has sponsored over 15,000 students since inception, with at least a thousand benefitting from the sponsorship this year.
The initiative offers comprehensive secondary school scholarships to academically gifted children from needy backgrounds, which covers tuition fees, books, school uniforms, accommodation, pocket money, transport costs among other expenses.
James Mwangi, Equity Bank Group CEO said the success of the programme has prompted and encouraged other organisations to also start offering education scholarships to needy students.
Last year, 1,309 Wings to Fly scholars qualified for university having attained the entry grade of C+ and above, representing 68.9 per cent of the 1,899 who sat the exam, compared to the national qualifying rate of 11.5 per cent.
Of these, nine candidates scored plain A grade while 107 others got A minus in 2017 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination.
Those who scored A and A minus, along with the another 133 who scored A nationally in the 2017 KCSE, will join the Equity Bank paid internship programme alongside the top boy and girl with an A minus from each sub-county where Equity Bank has a branch.
"Some 6,778 scholars have attained university entry qualifications and out of these, 84 ELP scholars have received admission to global universities. Another 34 have received admission through the early decision cycle for 2018 bringing the total number of scholars admitted to date to 443,” said Mwangi.
