Scholarship Aid Initiative has offered scholarships to 4,726 admission seekers in the country. The SAI, a non governmental organisation said the gesture would make education accessible to the less privileged.
The beneficiaries of the SAI were drawn from the S/West geo-political zone of the country, including Lagos.
5486 candidates wrote SAI scholarship exam 2019
African Regional President of SAI, Dr Adebayo Oluwatosin, said 5486 candidates wrote the scholarship examination for 2019. Out of the 5486 that sat for the examination, he said 4,726 met the cut off points for the scholarships.
Dr Oluwatosin decried the educational policy in Nigeria, saying it has continued to stifle the productivity of many Nigerian graduates. He also blamed the government for making education expensive.
Nigeria need to change in education policy
He said: “We need to change our educational policy. Let us go back to the system we were using before. Our system is the problem. Until the government is ready to change the system, like everybody is talking about, we will keep having this problem. The government knows the right thing to do but is not doing it.
“Our government has completely failed us. Many promises have been made, yet nothing has been done. They don’t care about the future of our children. Today, many of our graduates are outside there without a good job. Majority of these graduates studied irrelevant courses that are not relevant in the labour market again. ”
Unemployment depends on government policy
“Unemployment depends on government policy. There’s no light in Nigeria. How do you expect investors to come to Nigeria? We don’t have security in Nigeria. How do you expect any serious university to come here?
“Government should finance private universities and give ETF money. This way, private Universities will reduce their tuition fees if they get more financial support from the government.
NUC policy, the biggest problem
“The NUC policy is the biggest problem among them all. The government will ask you for 100 hectares of land to establish a private University. 200 million naira is demanded for bank draft, 5 million Naira processing fee, one million naira application fee.
Apart from that, there are other things you’ll do which is even internal. Those things are making education expensive. The government has to take a cue from what is obtainable abroad. Until the government can review and change all these policies, things can’t work out,” he submitted.
