The Vice-Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Abdalla Adamu, has announced that the university is working towards offering scholarships to 100 Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) in the country.
Adamu said that the university was working in collaboration with a local bank on the initiative. He said that the institution had made its willingness to educate IDPs known to one of the leading banks in the country.
”A representative of that bank made an unofficial statement; but they said they would back it up to sponsor 100 IDPs in the camps. We are still working on the modalities; we will enrol them in NOUN and the bank will pay,” he said.
He said that the World Bank had also advised NOUN to liaise with state governments to provide it with a list of indigent students for sponsorship.
He further added that World Bank had also said that indigent and disenfranchised students would be enrolled in NOUN under the bank’s facility, with their states’ approval. He explained that the World Bank would not give money to NOUN, but to the states to facilitate the education of such students.
Adamu added that all the states needed to do was to inform the World Bank and it would sponsor the students in NOUN through its access to education facility.
He expressed optimism that the offer would provide an opportunity to educate a huge number of people who did not have money to afford education.
He noted that globally, countries were faced with the triple challenge of expanding access, improving quality and ensuring equity, especially in higher education.
He said that in order to address and proffer solutions to the challenges, NOUN had instituted its public lecture series.
