The Global Education Drive (GED), an NGO, says it has created platform to enable indigent students to get international educational scholarships.
Chief Executive Officer of GED, Dr Amaka Chike, told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Enugu, on Sunday that the group developed three packages meant to reduce poverty nationwide.
He said that the packages would begin in Enugu, being the pilot state.
Chike, said that the international education scholarship, which falls under the Family Unit Education Package, involved going into communities to identify indigent but educationally gifted students.
He said the focus on the grassroots was in order to give them link and opportunity to take international educational scholarship examinations.
“”We identify indigent families with educationally talented students; we brush and prepare one student per family for international scholarship examination as well as pay for the examination.
““It is likely that they will do well, and the indigent student will run on the international scholarship programme for his tertiary institution schooling years maybe in U.S., Canada or Germany,’’ she said.
The GED boss said that another package of the NGO was Best Students Award, meant to stimulate students to be the best in all they did both academically and in extra curricula activities.
According to her, it is instituted to make students be committed and more serious in their education and any other thing they have passion for and can do well in.
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““Even as we encourage educational excellence, we know that some students are highly talented in extra curricula activities like sports, dancing, entertainment and cuisines.
““Over there in the developed countries, talent is valued; people use their natural talents to create wealth and fame for themselves; they pull themselves and their families out of poverty,’’ he said.
She noted that the Best Students Award was meant for rural and public secondary school students, adding that some public secondary schools had been selected for the programme already.
““We have selected Abakpa Girls Secondary School; Community Secondary School, Nsude; Aboh Secondary School; Urban Secondary School, Oji River; Opi High School, Opi; Amuri Community Secondary School etc,’’ she noted.
Chike, said that the third programme was the Career and Skills Development programme, meant to ensure that artisans got the best training and due international certification to practice their trade anywhere in the world.
She said that the NGO had plans to ensure that artisans who passed through its international modular training programme and succeed in the exam got international trade certification.
“After the trade training and examination, we back them up with tools and other resources as well as link them to our artisan network.
“In our artisan network, we link them to available jobs that we guarantee 100 per cent perfect delivery as well as insurance to back them in case of unforeseen circumstances,’’ she said. (NAN)