WE TARGET 240 STUDENTS IN THE SECOND PHASE SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME SAYS SENATOR ORJI
The former Gov
ernor of Abia State, and Senator representing Abia Central, Senator Theodore Orji says the second phase of his annual scholarship programme will commence in December, 2016 .
ernor of Abia State, and Senator representing Abia Central, Senator Theodore Orji says the second phase of his annual scholarship programme will commence in December, 2016 .Orji, who said 60 students benefited from the first phase launched last year, explained that the scheme is designed to produce a total of 240 undergraduates from his constituency in four years.
The Senator in a press statement signed by his Media Adviser, Don Norman Obinna, noted that 10 beneficiaries of the scheme are drawn from indigent undergraduates in each of the six Local Government Areas in Abia central.
Orji, who lamented that education is still being underfunded in Nigeria, said that his aim in floating the scheme was to secure the future of intelligent students from poor background in his constituency.
“The objective of this scholarship scheme is to leverage on the seed of excellence I planted while governor to ensure that the average student from my constituency attains that global acceptable high standard of education that will enable him/her compete effectively with their contemporaries in the globalized world,” he said.
He regretted that the federal education budget dropped from N492 billion in 2015 to N369 billion in 2016 saying that “it still fell short of UNESCO’s 26 per cent recommendation.”
This he said, “is a challenge to a sector that shoulders human capital development at this crucial time in our history.”