Students lament delayed disbursement of scholarship funds
Students in tertiary institutions have berated the non payment of their scholarship fund despite repeated appeals to concerned authorities. They said funds have neither been disbursed to the 2024, 2025,
Students in tertiary institutions have berated the non payment of their scholarship fund despite repeated appeals to concerned authorities. They said funds have neither been disbursed to the 2024, 2025, and 2026 awardees nor released to clear the outstanding arrears for some 2022 to 2024 beneficiaries. Nonetheless, they seek swift intervention from the government. WONDERFUL ADEGOKE (UDUS) reports.
Federal scholarship awardees have decried the delayed disbursements of funds, years after submitting their documents to the board’s director through their institutions’ registrars.
At an engagement with awardees’ leaders last week, they sought to draw the government’s attention to the hardship caused by the delay.
“Several attempts have been made to engage relevant authorities, including the Federal Ministry of Education, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and House of Assembly. Regrettably, these efforts have not yielded any concrete action or a credible timeline for payment,” said Salihu Iliya, who represents awardees in North Central region.
On its impact on the education sector, he said: “The federal Government understands that education is not a privilege, but a right, and that’s also why commitments made to students must be honoured without delay.”
Further to that, in a statement jointly issued by awardees’ leaders across the country and made available to CAMPUS LIFE, the beneficiaries disclosed that despite repeated engagements with the relevant authorities, their complaints remained unresolved.
At the moment, they said funds have neither been disbursed to the 2024, 2025, and 2026 awardees nor released to clear the outstanding arrears for some 2022 to 2024 beneficiaries.
Backstory
After the first year in school, a minimum of 4.0 Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) is required from students of Nigeria tertiary institutions. Beneficiaries who maintain their grades till they graduate remain under the sponsorship of the Federal Government.
For proper coordination, the Federal Scholarship Board was established to issue award letters and monitor the disbursement of funds to beneficiaries.
However, students say the processes involved have been marked by delays.
Students lament
Speaking with CAMPUS LIFE, Kabiru Datti Na Malanta, one of the beneficiaries awarded in 2022, said he applied because he believed that being an awardee will make his learning more easier.
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Of his experience, the final-year Civil Engineering student of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University said: “Months after writing an exam on October 14, 2022, the successful candidates selected based on merit were called for physical verification. Luckily, we succeeded and were awarded the sum of N250,000 per session. The money was meant to be paid to each beneficiary till graduation.”
Meanwhile, things changed after President Bola Tinubu was sworn into office. Increments were approved on two different occasions: first to N300,000 per session, and a few weeks later, it was then increased to N450,000.
Kabiru is one of the most affected beneficiaries. Having made plans for the funds, he was left with no option than to borrow money with the hope of repaying when payment comes through. Neither the increase nor his plans to repay the borrowed money worked.
Similarly, for Umar Faruk Sada, the delays has grown into a daily part of his life on campus.
“I applied for the Federal Scholarship Board program to ease the financial demands of my education, as covering academic and living expenses can be challenging. The application process involved submitting my academic records and completing the required verification steps, which was done twice, with the expectation of timely support,” said the 300-level student of Industrial and Technology Education at the Federal University of Technology, Minna.
Beyond that, it has affected his trust in government education programs. “As a student that depends on limited resources, the delayed disbursement makes it difficult to afford basic needs such as feeding, accommodation and academic materials. At times, it also affects my ability to focus on my studies. I have already lost hope in the scholarship after waiting for two years with no response from the government,” he explained.
Meanwhile, the delays again raises serious legal implications. According to Abubakar, a student of Ahmadu Bello University, not only does it serve as an infringement on the rights of beneficiaries, but it also contributes to brain drain.
“If scholarship boards are set up to benefit citizens of the county, what’s then the whole point when public funds can’t still be invested on these people?” Abubakar questioned.
Such, he noted, defeats the purpose of the board as scholarships are one of the few direct ways citizens from low-income areas feel the government’s impact.
Similarly, offering his thoughts on the likely educational gaps it caused, Shaibu Rufai Omale, a student of Usmanu Danfodiyo University, explained that it reflects negligence for global frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals that emphasizes preparing students for real-world challenges as the best possible means of youth empowerment.
Of his view, he said: “Innovation at grassroots level begins with the implementation of policies designed to tackle the quality of education delivery. To that end, there’s every reason to believe that beneficiaries were shortlisted to demonstrate the government’s commitment to transforming our educational landscape, and as such as, such must be kept to ensure no learner is left behind on ground of financial challenges.”
There, however, seems to be a new turn in this issue. As students continue to plead for their long-held privilege, Sumayyah Muhammad, also a student of UDUS, calls to mind how these fundamental failures now aligns with the present reality across campuses.
Having grown beyond minor oversights, Sumayyah said delayed funds represent just one part of the problem. “Coupled with neglected learning environments, scholarship beneficiaries face systemic failures that align with neither financial-access policies nor the conditions needed for learning.”
Her stance is based on the belief that an education system that only exists on paper is not an education system at all, it is a cycle we keep repeating while calling it progress.
The delays cut across all aspects of students’ learning. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a postgraduate student of Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu University who now has his thesis suspended due to lack of funds, lamented that it speaks otherwise of a nation that seeks to grow its economy based on human capital development.
“This act of delayed payment has crippled the morale of students, especially those struggling to sponsor themselves,” the student said.
Although he currently works as a teacher in a secondary school, and hopes to continue next year, he appeals to the government to come to their rescue as students are fast losing hope.
“All necessary measures to reach the government through the Ministry of Education remained futile. They kept on giving us false hope that the AGF is the centre of delay . We reached the AGF and we were told there was no fund yet . This took us several months of visit all to no avail,”he noted.
Ministry stays mum
For comments, CAMPUS LIFE emailed the Federal Scholarship Board on Monday morning. There was no response at press time.
