Tharaka Nithi bursary beneficiaries have been recognised as top performers in the 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations.

This has featured prominently in Maara constituency, where the programme, which is funded through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to award bursaries to needy and bright students, which covers various education-related costs, has received the expected results.

For instance, Terran Baraka Mwenda, one of the bursary beneficiaries who scored an A Plain (83 points) from Chogoria Boys High School, while speaking to the media, detailed the hardships of being raised by his grandmother, a journey that had a lot of challenges, including the payment of school fees after he was accepted to the school having scored 366 marks in his KCPE. "The CDF bursary enabled me to study without fees, despite home challenges like caring for my dementia and hypertension patient and having a Grade 6 brother,'' he said.

Baraka's plea to well-wishers is to sponsor his university education, where he wants to pursue medicine. "In class six, I lost my mother, and this has motivated me to pass and become a doctor because I wouldn't want anyone else to suffer due to illness," he said.