The growing rate of poverty and unemployment in Nigeria has led to several fights for survival by their victims, especially the indigent students. AUGUSTINE OKEZIE examines the survival strategies of such students in various schools
To an indigent student whose condition is regularly worsened by the poor level of assistance he or she can recieve especially In a typical academic environment, the thought about how to pay school fees, buy academic textbooks and above all keep in touch with student life while on campus has always remained a harrowing experience.
According Alhaji Ganiyu Sule, of Ghani Fawehinmi Scholarship Foundation, an indigent student is generally identified as an applicant that is poor; probably due to lack of parentage or that the parents lacked the means to fund his or her academic or intellectual pursuit. Similarly an indigent applicant is in most circumstances registered students in Nigeria and possesses good academic performances, which incidentally due to poor financial state, could not be realized except with external assistance
The general argument that often tilts the tide against an indigent student is the fact that there might be scholarships offers from governments and individuals but it might prove insufficient in most times, or might fail to address several other critical challenges affecting the student.
The involvement of government at any level, individual sand public spirited individuals have been widely acknowledged as invaluable in alleviating the harsh economic realities that often confronts indigent students while on campus.
In Kebbi state, for instance, a number of indigent students received several lifting from their state governments. Alhaji Abdulnasir Argungu, the Senior Special Assistant to Gov. Saidu Dankingari, said that beneficiaries were children of persons who could not shoulder the burden of the education of their children. Argungu said that the beneficiaries were sponsored for degree, diploma and NCE courses in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education and even I secondary schools
According to him, available records indicate that they are doing well. He said the state would expand the scholarship scheme to include foreign scholarship for those who performed well. He said the scholarship was part of the state government’s efforts to promote and develop its education sector.
Prince Tonye Princewill, the scion of the Kalabari Kingdom, was not left out in the philanthropic drive to encourage indigent students when he organised a scholarship scheme for postgraduates and undergraduates students across all tertiary institutions in the nation before the Buguma crisis and stream of politics at the time stalled the continuity of the scheme.
“I was an indigent student in the Leeds University that made the university authority then to reduce my school fees in order to enable me pay but today I am a happy man because, I am giving back to education what it gave to me through establishment of this scholarship scheme that will go a long way in ensuring that some of our lucky indigent students can comfortably study without much stress and hoping that they will turn out to better citizens of our dear country”, he said.
The list is, however, endless on available opportunities that are open to indigent students. Yet there are still some categories of indigent students that could not access scholarship grants and therefore had to resort to self help efforts including alternating their education with menial jobs, in order to fund their education
Amongst such indigent students were mourning and her twin sisters Jessica, both from Edo state but alongside their parents are resident in madala, Niger state.
Madam Gladys, the mother of the two girls, had nine children in all, composing of four girls and five boys. But the girls were older that the boys thus conferring on them the responsibility of assisting their mother to fend for the house since the head of the family is already late.
In an interactive chat after closing from the day’s market, the two girls narrated how they struggled to pay their school fees. According to them, they enrolled in the morning schools so that immediately after closing from school in the afternoon, they had to take the fried plantain which their mother had already prepared before their return from school, to the market to go and sell them and that profit realized from the venture will be added up to make out their school fees.
Even Comfort Imasuen, a university of Abuja part time student, is most left out in the lurch. She told Blueprint that as an orphan, she had no support from any quarter but from God and her determination to make it in life. She said she resorted to selling recharge cards, and female clothing’s which she usually hawk amongst her female colleagues in school for her survival
All said and done, government still had to do more to ensure that the level of assistance, given to indigent students continue to grow. In the words of the executive secretary of NUC, Professor Julius Okojie, who has consistently harped on cost sharing in universities to ensure that students pay tuition.’’ if tuition fees are introduced, there would also be preferred modalities for indigent students to access funds such as provision of educational loans and scholarships for excellent students as obtained in other climes’’.
