UKAid to conduct biometrics registration exercise for 3,000 Kenyan schoolchildren

UKAid is supporting the Adolescent Girls Initiative- Kenya (AGI-Kenya) to conduct a biometric registration exercise in which it will register the fingerprints of 3,000 adolescent girls to record their daily attendance, according to a report by All Africa.

Implemented by Save the Children, the biometric exercise will use inexpensive biometric technology to identify female students in 60 schools in Wajir County. Students who meet the required 80% school attendance record qualify for a bursary twice a term.

The bursary will be sent to the girl’s household head, whose biometric details have also been captured and connected to a bank account to allow electronic household cash transfers.

The biometrics-based attendance and payment system is able to create data that is more reliable, accurate and less expensive than other conditional cash transfer initiatives.

“Though it is a little time consuming to register one beneficiary, it will be fairly easy to use the information later to mark school attendance as they will just be checking in and out and not going through the whole detailed process,” said one of the research assistants engaged in registering the beneficiaries.

All girls meeting the 80% attendance requirement will have their school tuition paid and their school will also be provided with financial support for school operations.

The two-year AGI-Kenya program is designed to accommodate 6,000 girls, ages 11 to 14, in Wajir County and the Kibera slums in Nairobi County.

The program is part of the UK’s Department for International Development’s commitment to lower the cost of education in the poorest households, increase and improve the provision of low-fee schooling in informal settlements, and provide more effective types of education for children in the nomadic and pastoral regions of Kenya.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  children  |  fingerprint registration  |  Kenya  |  schools  |  time and attendance