Kaduna to offer scholarships to indigent students in rural areas

Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Scholarship and Loans Board, Professor Yahya Sale Ibrahim, said Governor Uba Sani has refocused his administration’s policy of inclusion without sacrificing merit.

Ibrahim, who disclosed this at a media briefing on Friday, said that the governor’s new template has started bearing fruits.

According to him, students from humble backgrounds and those from rural local governments and remote rural communities are now benefitting from foreign scholarships, which has expanded and enriched the Kaduna State Scholarship award system.

“In the past, beneficiaries of foreign scholarships were mostly from urban local governments like Kaduna North, Kaduna South, Igabi, Zaria, Sabon Gari, Jema’a and Zangon Kataf local governments,” he said.

“But the all-inclusive government of Senator Uba Sani changed the narratives within the shortest time.”

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The Executive Secretary explained that before the coming of Sani, the beneficiaries, “were mostly from middle and upper-middle-class families who attended elite secondary schools and whose parents can sponsor their wards to any University abroad.”

Ibrahim pointed out that the Sani administration has made efforts to include students from “remote local governments and those from humble backgrounds, to benefit from the scholarship scheme without lowering standards.”

He stressed that the last set of beneficiaries who graduated as medical doctors showed that the lower segment of Kaduna State was carried along in the selection process.”

Ibrahim commended Sani for giving the young medical doctors employment, to boost the stock of personnel in public hospitals.

“The impact of His Excellency’s decision to employ these young and talented medical doctors in terms of reduction in waiting time to see doctors will improve the health sector,” he added.

“The gesture will also serve as an impetus for students on scholarship to put in their best, knowing that their hard work will be rewarded.”