{"id":5621,"date":"2017-11-01T18:55:09","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T18:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=5621"},"modified":"2017-11-01T18:55:09","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T18:55:09","slug":"saraki-directs-mdas-to-submit-outstanding-scholarships-to-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=5621","title":{"rendered":"Saraki Directs MDAs to Submit Outstanding Scholarships\u00a0to Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"

…Calls for Review of Scholarship Policy\u00a0<\/strong>
\nBy Chuks Okocha<\/strong>, Special Assistant (Print Media) to the President of the Senate\u00a0
\nPresident of the Senate Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki on Wednesday met with representatives of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) responsible for the welfare of Nigerian Students on scholarships abroad now stranded due to non-payment of their living allowances and tuition fees by relevant government agencies.\u00a0
\nThe Senate in plenary had mandated the President of the Senate to intervene and know why Nigerian students on scholarships in foreign countries are yet to be paid their scholarship funds.
\nSaraki at the meeting which was attended by the Senate Leader, Deputy Senate Leader, Chairman Senate Committees on Tertiary Education and TETFUND and other Senators directed the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB) to urgently present a comprehensive report of all Nigerian students on scholarship abroad and their outstanding entitlements to the relevant committees of the Senate to enable the Senate make Appropriations for their settlement.\u00a0
\nWhile saying that the Senate committees after due consideration of of the reports would make recommendations to the Senate on how to clear the backlogs through appropriation, he called for a comprehensive review of scholarship policies in the country so as to save the nation from future embarrassment.
\nAccording to Saraki the meeting was called to enable the leadership of the Senate and heads of relevant agencies\u00a0put heads together on a matter of pressing concern, which is the welfare of Nigerian students\u00a0on\u00a0scholarships\u00a0who\u00a0are stranded\u00a0abroad\u00a0due to the\u00a0inability to fulfill the country’s\u00a0responsibilities to these students, and meet their needs.
\n“As some of you\u00a0may know, I was in Russia\u00a0last month to\u00a0participate at the 137th\u00a0Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), and I heard first-hand the plight of our students for whom the expected scholarship funding has dried up,” Saraki said. “The overwhelming feeling on the part of these students is one\u00a0of\u00a0abandonment by their motherland.”
\nHe said that the outstanding students allowances needed to be settled urgently to save them from untold hardship.\u00a0
\n“This feeling of abandonment is one that we must move quickly to\u00a0dissipate, by\u00a0working urgently to alleviate\u00a0the difficulties faced by these students,” Saraki stated. “We must look for ways to\u00a0reestablish the pipelines and remove the bottlenecks, so that\u00a0our\u00a0students who went abroad with the promise and assurance of scholarship funding, will get their stipends as and when due.”
\nHe lamented that several brilliant Nigerian students \u00a0on federal scholarships are languishing abroad due to the inability of the Federal Government to pay its counterpart funding of the scholarships awarded under bilateral agreements with with foreign governments\u00a0
\n“Under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) entered into by Nigeria and several foreign governments,\u00a0some of the\u00a0host countries have\u00a0responsibility for part of the upkeep of Nigerian students \u2013 while Nigeria\u00a0must necessarily fulfill\u00a0her own part,” Saraki said. “There is a need for\u00a0the MDAs\u00a0to look at our responsibility to our\u00a0students\u00a0in the different countries, and devise\u00a0ways of making good on our part of such agreements.”\u00a0
\nHe added: “We must recognise that these students scattered that are currently in dire conditions\u00a0all over the world, represent a sizable component of the future of Nigeria \u2013 her dreams of progress\u00a0and\u00a0development.\u00a0
\n“This is another kind of brain drain, The worst part is, this\u00a0is a\u00a0brain drain\u00a0that\u00a0benefits no one, not even foreign countries. We are not even losing the best of these students to foreign lands \u2013\u00a0we are in danger of losing them, period.\u00a0If we don\u2019t rectify this situation \u2013 let me put it bluntly \u2013 we would be sacrificing their futures; and that, is unthinkable.”
\nThe Director in charge of Scholarship at the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB), Fatima Ahmad, had earlier told the Senators than there is an outstanding of N2.4 Billion in scholarships yet to be settled by the Board due to inadequate or lack of budgetary provisions.\u00a0
\nShe stated that for the year 2015 and 2016 that there was an outstanding scholarship allowance to the tune of N799.8 million, out of which \u00d1444.2 million has been paid leaving balance \u00a0of \u00d1355.6million.
\nIn his reaction, the President of the \u00a0Senate directed the FSB to prepare a comprehensive report on the outstanding allowances and tuition and submit to the education committees to enable the Senate make provision for its settlement in the budget.\u00a0
\nHe however enjoined the FSB to imbibe the spirit of transparency and federal character in the award of all federal scholarships.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…Calls for Review of Scholarship Policy\u00a0 By Chuks Okocha, Special Assistant (Print Media) to the President of the Senate\u00a0 President of the Senate Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki on Wednesday met with representatives of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) responsible for the welfare of Nigerian Students on scholarships abroad now stranded due to non-payment of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}