16 Rivers State students are trapped in the UK, and nobody is doing anything about it

 

In an embarrassing development, the Rivers State Government has turned its back on a group of students it sponsored for further studies in the United Kingdom, through the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) Overseas Undergraduate Scholarship Programme, at the University of Huddersfield.

The Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) is a strategic intervention programme of the Rivers State Government, set up under a legal framework to re-focus development actions targeted at poverty alleviation, rural development, and youth empowerment.

Under this programme, the Rivers State Government sponsored 16 students for various programs of study at the University of Huddersfield, ranging from Energy Engineering to Town and Region Planning, then promptly reneged on its promise to pay their school fees, leaving the students, some of whom are on the verge of completing their degrees, stranded and sinking ever deeper into debt in order to get by.

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The scholarship granted to the students currently trapped at the University of Huddersfield, is supposed to cover their air fare to and from school, tuition (including labs and books), accommodation in on-campus residence halls and off-campus apartments, food, and grant a monthly stipend for personal upkeep. YNaija estimates the average value of all these expenses to be in the neighbourhood of approximately £12,000 or N3.7 Million, hardly what a young person still pursuing their studies can be expected to afford on their own.

According to Kevin Nwoke, one of the affected students at the University of Huddersfield, the last payment made towards their school fees by the RSSDA was nine months ago. Since then, attempts to elicit responses from RSSDA officials as to when the outstanding fees will be paid have proven abortive.

The affected students at Huddersfield are in their penultimate year of study, and have done so well academically, that some of them have secured placements at notable companies for practical experience, as part of their third year placement. On July 1, in a meeting with the International Office at the University, school officials informed the Rivers State students that there was nothing more the school could do on their behalf, as all their attempts to procure the outstanding funds from the Rivers State Government and the RSSDA were met with vague answers, evasion, and excuses.

Worryingly, this appears to be part of a shameful trend of State Governments sponsoring underprivileged students to study abroad to great fanfare, then abandoning their financial obligations once the limelight has moved on. And abandon them, the Rivers State Government has. For nine long months, the third year student beneficiaries of the RSSDA scholarship have been in limbo, uncertain of their fate as their hard won education hangs in the balance.

 

 

Hope seemed to come in the form of a last minute order in July by Governor Nyesom Wike to pay outstanding fees for RSSDA students abroad, but it was quickly dashed when it turned out that only the fees of final year students would be paid in order to allow them graduate. The Huddersfield 16, who are third year students continue to struggle to support themselves with no help from RSSDA or the Rivers State Government.

Where then is the rest of the money meant for the school fees of first, second, and third year students? Rivers State, like almost all other states in the country has a well documented history of misappropriating funds. Were government monies originally allocated for education appropriately spent in the first place, there would be no need for the state’s students to even seek quality education abroad. As it stands now, the state of tertiary institutions in Rivers State is embarrassingly pitiful; its universities are an eyesore, and thoroughly lacking in qualified professors, decent facilities, and 21st century educational resources.

 

One comment

  1. So unfortunate….but the British home office that want them to leave ,should then pay their flight ticket back to Nigeria,simple.

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