By Festus Ahon
Mr Peter Amromanoh is the Executive Secretary of the Delta State Bursary and Scholarship Board. In this interview, he spoke on the activities of the Board and Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan’s administration in the state.
Excerpts:

You are the Secretary of the Delta State Bursary and Scholarship Board. What is this Board all about?
By the grace of God, the State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan in his wisdom appointed me a year ago as the Secretary of the Board. The Board is responsible for the payment of scholarship and bursary in Delta State.

What is the difference between scholarship and bursary?

Scholarship as the name implies is for scholars, that is why the scholarship itself has its own criteria. The scholarship we have in the state here is for both local and foreign scholarship. For local scholarship, we have the one for undergraduate and the one for post graduate. For post graduate we have the ones of Masters and Ph.D.

Peter Amromanoh

Then in the area of bursary we don’t pay bursary in the state as it is. It has been abolished for the past two years. We pay what is called Student Special Assistance Scheme because it has criteria. It is not for every student in Delta State. So the special students assistance scheme is for those in 200 level and above in the university and for those in HND and not OND. It is for those doing regular programmes in the universities and polytechnics not for part time or weekend programme.

What are the criteria for the scholarship and the special student assistance scheme?

The local scholarship is for 200 level undergraduate students in the Nigerian universities, the benefiting student must have a GPA of 3.5 and above to qualify. Then for the one of Masters, you must be in a Nigerian University and you must have finished your NYSC to qualify and for Ph.D you must have finished your Masters, and now you are doing your Ph.D. But you must be in the University for You to qualify.

But the one of overseas, there are two schemes. We have the one for First Class; that is if you have a First Class Degree, government gives you scholarship to do your Ph.D and that is the one we will soon advertise now for them to come for their final screening because we have gotten some students that have first class.

For those ones, we place them in different universities overseas. Others that do not have first class have to write examination for the local scholarship scheme.

So far, how many students have you sent for international studies?

For the international studies, last year we had 15 students and mainly first class graduates and those are the 15 that is in our scheme right now to which we are to add other students this year. So we send them abroad to study various courses. We are now waiting to collate their academic records so that we can now give them another window.

How much is it costing the state government to send these students abroad?

For our last year scheme, it was N3 million per student overseas. But our first class students, we are giving them full scholarship, we are giving them N5 million and government will be responsible for their visas and air tickets, that is the scheme for this year which we are working on.

How many students have you given scholarship in the local window?

The window for this particular year for undergraduates, government will give 400 students scholarship, that is 200 level and the beauty of it is to encourage the students because when you maintain the 3.5, by next year, it is automatic since you may not need to sit for examination again until you finish from the school.

So 400 of them will be given undergraduate scholarship in any discipline. For masters we are giving 125 masters students while Ph.D is 50.

So how much are you giving to each of the students at the undergraduate level?

For undergraduate, we are giving out N100,000, masters N200,000 and Ph.D N300,000. Like I said, these will continue until the student finishes, unless his or her GPA drops. So it is not just once and for all affair. It is an annual payment that government is giving to them as long they maintain their GPA’S.

What step is the Board taking to ensure that these scholarships get to the right students?

After the examination that we conduct, we do final screening to be sure that it gets to the right students and like our publication stated; you must collect a letter from the Dean, Student Affair, not somebody from outside that is getting it. So with that we believe we are trying our best particularly with the school saying they are actually students of the school and after that, periodically the Board will visit the school to make sure that our students are in school. Apart from that, they also expected to send their academic record to us.

What is the mode of payment? Do you pay to the students directly?

For now we write the cheques in the names of the students. But for our overseas scholarship, we are paying in the names of the schools. For local scholarship we are giving the students cheque that is what we are doing for now.

How would you rate the standard of education in the state vis a vis the Bursary and Scholarship that you give to students?

The state government has actually done very well in the area of  education and bursary in particular. Government put has put in so much money to boost education in the State. You know, education is the
driving force of the human capital development.

That is why government has embarked on the payment of WAEC fees for secondary school students across the state and the Board is also corroborating this with the scholarships and the various special students assistance schemes.

So it shows that the state government is actually sincere in making sure that Deltans actually acquire education because education is the bedrock of development.

Looking at what you have just said, how would now assess the administration of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan vis a vis his three point agenda?

The human capital development drives the other areas. He has concentrated on the human capital development so that the other areas can see the light of the day. So with that I believe the government
has actually tried.

I will score the government 99%. I want to use this opportunity to commend my commissioner, the commissioner for Higher Education, Dr. Hope Eghagha for the good work he is doing. He is working hard to raise the standard of education in the state.

What will be your words of advice for Deltans, particularly students?

My words advice for Deltans especially students where I belong is that they should try as much as possible to key into our e-registration. Governor Uduaghan wants bursary to be paid to students directly. With the e-payment and e-registration that we are now introducing we encourage students to register online and if they have problems they should always visit our website and ask questions.