The administration of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State has secured fully-funded scholarships for another 28 post graduate students who are indigenes of the state to study in Europe and America.
Addressing newsmen when he led the beneficiaries to the Government House, Enugu, on Friday, Executive Secretary of the Enugu State Scholarship Board, Levi Abonyi, said the scholarship mentorship programme was designed and developed by the Board to expose Enugu students to available funding opportunities around the world, in line with Gov. Ugwuanyi administration’s youth empowerment scheme.
Abonyi revealed that the scholarship programme was approved by the State Executive Council (EXCO), adding that the programme has produced 46 fully-funded Masters and PhD students from the state. The first batch of the programme launched in October 2020 had 18 Enugu State indigenes as beneficiaries.
The Executive Secretary explained that programme prepares fresh graduates to enroll directly into PhD programmes without first obtaining a Masters Degree. He added that Gov. Ugwuanyi administration’s “goal is to produce a generation of intellectuals who will be better equipped to turn the state around economically and who will be better disposed to compete favourably globally”.
Dwelling further on the state government’s contributions to the programme, Abonyi said that it “pays the six scholarship mentors monthly allowances as honorarium for their services, takes care of the cost of Visa, flight tickets, initial living expenses and other logistics of all successful students at the cost of N1 million and comes in as a guarantor for the issuance of Visas to the benefiting students”.
Expressing gratitude to Gov. Ugwuanyi on behalf of the beneficiaries, Lillian Chinenye Ekowo, who will be travelling to the University of Notre Dame, United States, thanked the governor for availing them the opportunity to benefit from the scholarship board, disclosing that “Today, each one of us was awarded the scholarship of N1 million naira travelling expenses”.
