NGO Awards Scholarship to Four Indigent Students
Kasim Sumaina A non-governmental organisation (African Youth Growth Foundation) in its maiden edition of the launch of Academia Marathon has awarded complementary scholarship to four indigent students to help actualise their educational aspiration.
The scheme according to the foundation was conceptualised to address the problem of indigent students who are brilliant but lack access to finance.
The event, which held recently in Abuja, saw the overall winner, Mr. Victory Tochukwu, a 400 level student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), receive N250,000; the first runner-up, Eureka Chukwuka, N150,000; while the second runner-up, Mr. Eze Benjamin, got N100,000.
The Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, on behalf of the board of directors, said the purpose of the academia marathon is to provide financial support to deserving indigent students in the country to actualise their educational aspiration. He said the process of selection was carefully done to promote academic excellence and competition.
“The importance and linkage of education to the development of any society is well known. It is in recognition of this importance that the international community and governments all over the world made commitments for citizens to have access to education.
“Meanwhile, it has been documented that across the world that there are inequali- ties in education access and achievement, as well as high level of absolute educational deprivation of children and adults. The importance of education to human beings cannot be over emphasised. Education is a human right that should be accorded to all human beings solely by reasons of being humans.
The Executive Director, of the foundation, Dr. Arome Salifu, said: “This is not a programme that is tribal or religious nor geo-political zones sensitive. It is on the basis of your performance academically. So, as you can see, the 2014 maiden edition winners, most of them are concentrated on a particular zone partly because they did so well from that zone. However, the 2015 edition that is ongoing, we hope the winners are going to be nationally spread.
He said the 2015 edition would be in two phases, the internal and the external, adding that the internal has to do with those writing WAEC and JAMB, while the external would involve those in the universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and other higher institutions, and they would be judged based on their scores.
Salifu said the winner from the internal phase would get N5 million. “This scheme is going to impact positively on the overall performance of the students because, over the years, we have seen that the performance of student in public examinations declined, but, I assure you with this project just like several others, their performance will be boosted, it will also help reduce the possibilities of their involvement in social vices.”