‘Sponsor’ Relationship among Kenyan University Students (Perspective Essay)

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue V, May 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

‘Sponsor’ Relationship among Kenyan University Students (Perspective Essay)

Elvis Omondi Kauka
Department of Educational Foundations, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya

Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to explore both the factors that contribute to illicit relationships between university students and financially endowed adults (here-in referred to as sponsors) and in so doing offer some pragmatic solutions to the problem. The fact that young University students engage carnally with older richer men and women poses an ethical dilemma necessitated by a  warped utilitarian and relativistic philosophical model of thought. The essay proceeds by exploring factors that force the students and adults into sponsor relationships(push factors)  and factors that attract them into sponsor relationships(pull factors). It finally suggests some possible pragmatic solutions based on the author’s experience and observations as a former high school student and teacher, a former university student, and a current university teacher.

Keywords: Sponsor, Sponsee

I. INTRODUCTION

While the concept of sponsorship has a positive, descriptive and dictionary connotation, it has been acquiring a rather bizarre connotation in Kenyan social context, specifically among university students.  In the socio-linguistics of Kenyan University students, a Sponsor or ‘Sponyee’ is a financially endowed adult willing to exchange their finances with fringe benefits from one or several university students. Some of the fringe benefits sponsors accrue from students include sexual attention while the ‘sponsee’ (the student being sponsored) for the most part accesses the liquid cash of the sponsor. This kind of symbiotic relationship is necessitated by a myriad of factors which can be divided into the Push factors and Pull factors. Push factors refer to conditions that force either the sponsor or the ‘ sponsee’ into a sponsorship relationship while the pull factors refer to conditions that attract the sponsor or ‘sponsee‘ into a  sponsorship relationship

II. PUSH FACTORS

Poverty: Lack of or inadequate access to basic needs and the need to meet these needs push university students into sponsor relationship. While university students are given government loan, generally known as HELB loan, the amount disbursed to some of them seem to only cater to fees and partially accommodation. The remaining amount, if any, cannot cater to the whole semesters’ basic needs, including food and clothing.  While some students come from reasonably well-off families, the majority comes from low-income families whose support to their university sons and daughters are at its bear minimum or shifted towards their younger siblings in primary and secondary schools. With this gap, the students are forced to seek a solution to the problem, yet the kind of solution sought depends on the individual student’s outlook, philosophy and moral upbringing. For some, of course, illicit sexual affairs are a less strenuous mode of backing up their meagre financial states.

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