Eligibility

Who receives a scholarship

Growth Through Learning provides full secondary school scholarships for young women in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Every scholarship covers the whole cost of school for the whole of secondary school. We do not offer partial awards.

Scholars are not selected from a distance. Our country coordinators work with our fifteen partner schools and with the communities around them, where a family's circumstances are known rather than declared on a form.

The four criteria

What candidates are assessed on

Each candidate is considered against four things. They are weighed together: a girl who meets three of them and not the fourth is not a candidate we can help.

Demonstrated academic achievement in primary school

Our scholars have already proven themselves. We are not looking for potential that someone hopes will emerge — we are looking for a girl whose primary school record shows what she can already do.

Genuine financial need, verified locally

What stands between our scholars and a diploma is money, not ability. Need is confirmed by the coordinator and the school in the girl's own community, not assessed from a written claim.

Admission to, or eligibility for, a partner secondary school

A scholarship is a place at one of our fifteen partner schools across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. A girl must have earned that place, or be eligible for it, before it can be funded.

Commitment to completing the full four years

We fund secondary school through to a diploma, not a year at a time. That commitment runs both ways: we stay until she graduates, and we ask that she intends to finish.

The award

What a scholarship covers

A partial scholarship leaves a girl with a gap she still cannot close, so we do not offer one. A scholar arrives at school needing nothing else.

Tuition
School uniforms
National exam fees
Books and supplies
Room and board
Transport where needed

Selection

How a scholar is found

Selection is handled by our country coordinators together with partner schools and local communities. Coordinators live and work in the countries they serve, visit the schools, and know every scholar by name. That is also how need is verified: locally, by people who can see it.

There is no online application, no form to download, and no annual deadline published here. Candidates are identified through the partner schools and the communities around them, which is what allows the four criteria above to be assessed honestly rather than self-reported.

If you believe a girl should be considered

Speak to the head teacher at a Growth Through Learning partner school, who can raise her with the country coordinator. If you are not near a partner school, write to us at info@growththroughlearning.org and we will point you to the coordinator for your country.

See the partner schools, country by country