Twelve Nigerian Universities have agreed to offer 550 scholarships to students from the Republic of Gambia in response to a demand from the Gambian government.
The development came up sequel to a request made by the Minister of Education of The Gambia,
Honourable Badara Joof to his Nigerian counterpart, Malam Adamu Adamu, for educational support in the area of capacity building and capital development.
The minister of education mandated the National Universities Commission, (NUC) and the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to coordinate and this led to a meeting convened by the Executive Secretary, NUC with the registrar of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede and twelve selected universities to discuss how to carry out the Honourable Minister of Education’s directives.
In his opening remarks at the meeting, the NUC Executive Secretary,Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, reiterated the need to assist Nigeria’s big brother, the Gambia.
He said it was necessary to render the assistance to The Gambia in order to develop its human capacity and strengthen the educational institutions for the rapid development of the country.
Rasheed explained that, as one of the smallest countries in the world, The Gambia had always relied on Nigeria for assistance in several areas such as education, Judiciary, security, among others. He added that Nigerian Professors pioneered the management of The Gambian University, as Vice-Chancellors.
Professor Rasheed said that such assistance was capable of not only scaling up the rating of Nigerian
universities globally, with the presence of foreign students but also with the award of scholarship which were some of the criteria for ranking.
He observed that the request, coming at a time when Nigerian universities were been criticised by some people was a relief and an indication that the Nigerian universities were not doing badly.
The NUC Scribe promised that the Commission would increase the quota of the selected universities to enable them accommodate the students.
