THE Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has said it will assist indigent students acquire basic, secondary and tertiary education.
Through the Social Welfare Tuition Scholarship Scheme under the Social Development Secretariat (SDS), students in the FCT who intend to acquire education can do so with support from the Administration.
Head of Media and Public Relations of the Secretariat, Sunday Shaka disclosed this to The ICIR.
He said the scholarship was not restricted to indigenes alone as it is available for all residents of the Territory, regardless of tribe or religion.
Shaka further noted that the Scholarship Scheme originated from a need to rehabilitate the homeless and destitute in the FCT.
“It is open to all residents of the FCT. The idea behind this is we have a department of Social Welfare. The department is tasked by the Honourable Minister of State Dr. Ramatu Tijani Aliyu, who oversees the activities of the Secretariat, with going out to apprehend the destitute within the city of Abuja, among other things.
“We realised that so many of those apprehended do not have the opportunity to go to school and most of them are school drop-outs as a result of paucity or lack of funds. Most of them are in the streets because they want to go back to school .
“So we started with these category of persons, but while it was ongoing, we realised that some parents also found it difficult to enrol their children in school, no thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic that affected virtually everybody. So we decided as a government that is proactive, that every resident of the FCT willing to go to school should let us know,” he said.
Shaka said the scheme had been on since February with over 3,000 people taking part without having to pay for forms. He however noted that the non-committal attitude of some students led to the attachment of a commitment fee ranging between N5000-N7000 for purchase of forms.
“Even as the Administration pays for everything including lectures, we realised that some people were lackadaisical about it in the first batch. So those for NECO, WAEC and NABTEB are encouraged to come to the secretariat and pay a commitment fee of N5000 to obtain the form, that is all they are expected to pay. The Administration takes care of every other thing.
“In the first batch, we did not include Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB). Now, IJMB students are to pick the form with the sum of N7000 naira,” he said.
Shaka had earlier said in a statement on Thursday that a huge chunk of the examination fees for students enrolled in the Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) programme would be waived.
“For IJMB students, the FCT Administration is waiving off a huge sum of N250,000 from the tuition fees that’s about N300, 000 across other centres where IJMB is being conducted.
“So, all IJMB students are expected to pay just N60,000 fees for both the (internal and external) exams as against the over N300,000 obtained elsewhere,” the statement said.
Lectures for the examinations are slated to begin on August 1, 2022, and will hold in designated centres across the six area councils in the FCT.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via vopara@icirnigeria.org or @ije_le on Twitter.