Jonathan inaugurates committee on
scholarship for best brains
President Goodluck
Jonathan has
inaugurated a
committee to scout
the nation’s tertiary
institutions for the
best 100 first-class students that will
be given scholarships to further study
abroad.
Inaugurating the Special Committee on
Scholarship for Best Brains in Abuja, on
Thursday, the president instructed the
ten-man committee to completely
eschew the quota system in the
selection process and go for the best
brains.
The committee is expected to select the
best 100 first-class students in some
specialized courses such as the sciences,
engineering and economics from
universities in the country and expose
them to the best facilities in the world.
In a bid to encourage and enhance
knowledge transfer, beneficiaries of the
scholarship after their graduation, are
expected to lecture for the first five
years, in the nation’s institutions, after
which they can go on to be on their
own.
The President, who is a doctorate
degree holder, condemned the dearth of
academics in the nation’s tertiary
institutions, where only 60 percent of
lecturers are doctorate degree holders.
President Jonathan noted that such a
situation must change if Nigeria is be
transformed.
He charged the committee headed by
the executive secretary of the Nigerian
Universities Commission (NUC), Professor
Julius Okojie, to shun quota system and
work only on merit in the selection of
the brains for the scholarship
programme.
According to the President, for Nigeria
to maintain its status as a leading
African country, and for the
transformation agenda of the
government to succeed, the government
must pay more attention to the
development of human capacity.
To this end, he pledged a total
commitment to changing the
educational system, across all levels from
primary to tertiary.