SAD: Why Governor Wike Plans To End Foreign Scholarship For Rivers Student

The Rivers state government has revealed that it can no longer sustain the overseas scholarship to benefactors of the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) and has therefore planned to withdraw students who are schooling abroad.

This information was provided to parents by Ominim Jack who is the acting executive director of RSSDA and the commissioner of agriculture in Port Harcourt

Daily Post reports that the commissioner told the parents that the current economic situation made it impossible for the sustenance of the overseas scholarship scheme but the state planned to return the students back to Nigeria to continue with their education.

She said the students who would still be on full scholarship would either be transferred to the University of Port Harcourt or the Rivers State University of Science and Technology.

She said: “I want to first of all let you know that the Governor, Nyesom Wike takes the education of our students very seriously. Today, we have to be realistic. We all know what is happening in Nigeria. We now have a dwindling revenue both from FAC and IGR. We all know our exchange rates.

“We are here to give a proposal to let you know that the state is committed to pay installmentally for all our final year students totalling almost 200.

“We are putting arrangements in place for students who are not in their final year to get transfer back to schools in Nigeria, especially in Rivers state with full scholarships.”

Daily Post reports that the news was greeted with dissatisfaction from the parents of the students studying overseas. They pleaded with the governor to find ways to sustain the scholarship.

A parent said: “My child is studying in Canada. But how can somebody who is in her 3rd year now return to Nigeria just like that? The curriculum can never be the same. We do not agree with the proposal of governor Wike.”

Another added: “For almost one year now, the state government has stopped paying the students their allowance. And we have been taking responsibility for that. We won’t mind to continue but the government should just pay the school fees. It is a very bad decision to withdraw all the students and place them in schools in Port Harcourt. The Governor should not do that.”

In a related development, Nigerian students under the Bilateral Education Agreement scholarship scheme in Russia, have slammed Nigeria’s federal government for abandoning them in the European country.