By Victor Nwegede, Abakaliki.
The Chairman of the Ebonyi State Scholarships Board, Chief Chaka Ogbonna Nweze, Wednesday disclosed that the state government would spend 3bllion Naira on 263 foreign scholarship students.
Nweze, who disclosed this to journalists shortly after briefing the beneficiaries of the foreign scholarship at the old Exco-chamber, Government House in Abakaliki, noted that the state Governor Francis Nwifuru had released 3 billion naira for the Masters and doctorates degree for the students.
He, however, extolled Governor Nwifuru for providing all necessary support to the beneficiaries of foreign scholarship, adding that the scholarship board does not have challenges with regards to the scholarships because his administration had earlier funded the ministry for the betterment of the candidates.
"We don't have any challenges as regards the foreign scholarships because the board has already been funded by the state governor, and even when we are doing national scholarships, the board was equally funded. The beneficiaries of foreign scholarships have been profiled, and we have equally paid their tuition fees and any moment from now, their living expenses will be given to them.
"From a Masters degree to a doctorate at the end of the day, the state government will spend close to 3 billion naira
"For the national scholarship for this year alone government will spend 15 billion and meanwhile, the governor has released 10 billion Naira for the foreign scholarships for us and it may need to release another 500 hundred million Naira for their logistics because we are going to provide them with flight tickets and visa for each student is appropriately 490 pounds and some of them who don't have a passport, we need to open passport for them.
"Ebonyi State government has started engaging foreign universities, and even before now, I have travelled to the United Kingdom alongside with commissioner for tertiary institution to engage the university we are using for now and we are in touch with them and right now they have given us medium to upgrade.
"We have a total of 363 foreign scholarship candidates to depart for the United Kingdomm by the end of this month and the first batch is 212 candidates."
