Raising bar of students fund support: Senator Jimoh ibrahim – CFR” September windfall, a huge succor for parents,students.
By Steve Ovirih.
In the global school calendar, schools resume in September, heralding a new academic session. Even if in most higher institutions, academic calendar vary, it is a given that for most ivory towers , the ember months kick start the hustle for a brand new session. This is, for parents, a very demanding period where the taps of cash are tapped as financial responsibility flies from all angles for parents and guardians.
Undergraduates of Federal universities in the years gone by used to have tuition fee and sundry financial needs for school that was pocket friendly and quite affordable but not anymore. State owned higher institutions? In some states, tuition fees are beginning to boldly compete with the levy even in some private universities. Considering the turn and shape that things have taken across domestic economies, bankrolling wards in higher institution is beginning to become a much more tasking parental responsibility.
Need we talk about undergraduates on self sponsorship? Yes, there are such set of students : a good number of them orphans, some with parents but terribly indigent to the point of barely raising feeding money for the home front, yet they have outstanding and brilliant students who are motivated by all means to go for the goal in the ivory tower. Those who are not lazy gain admission and work , sweating it out both with labour on the side while shuttling through classes as the major goal. How do they make both ends meet? Some parents are actually working either as artisans or salary earners but for the majority in this class, regardless of the hardwork, the fund is not always adequate. Yet , their wards must go to school.
Students of such parents no doubt can make do with soft fund support as students loan from government , bursaries and whatever philanthropic outreach that can make learning easy . University education without enough fund in the pocket of the undergraduate is a sad invitation to poor performance , the outcome of which makes whatever poor class of degree acquired by such undergraduate a ‘worthless paper’ in the highly competitive labour market.
The news of Ondo South Senator, Distinguished Senator Jimoh Ibrahim’ s ‘back to school financial support’ for undergraduates from his Senatorial District hit front headlines in Mid August and reverberated beyond the boundaries of Ondo South. In a statement he personally endorsed which was picked by virtually all the conventional and new media platforms, the prominent member of the 10th Senate offered to give a lumpsum of one hundred million Naira to one thousand students of higher institution from his district. To allow for a thorough process of accessing the fund , bonafide Ondo South Students according to the Press release are to connect to their roots by reaching the monarchs palaces in their home town across Ondo South Senatorial district to obtain the form for the fund. The cheque is to be distributed in September.
No doubt , for those who will draw from the fund at the rate of a hundred thousand Naira per beneficiary from the Jimoh Ibrahim largess , it will create a window of fund security that will provide assistance benchmark for their indigent parents no matter the length of days, weeks or months it will take the beneficiaries to put it into some good use. If you have ever depended on parents who scrap the ground and till the soil to survive and who barely survive on some meagre income that finishes even before it is collected, you will sincerely appreciate a hundred thousand Naira students support coming from the abundance of a politician as a philanthropist; for the truth remains that in a hard time like this no benefit goes unappreciated. It is this kind of support benefits that students crave not because of the respite it gives their parents but because of the sense of belonging such philanthropy creates. Must this come only from politicians? There is an act of giving that is branded Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR) and you can take my words for it, there are private individuals , big time business giants and corporate organizations that can breast the tape on this policy. This Jimoh Ibrahim fund assistance template to the indigents is a recommended approach for those in the society whom Providence and the good natured spirit has helped to crack their palm kernel. It is instructive that government across board no longer provide buffer for education at the higher institution unlike in post independence years when education was a luxury enjoyed across Nigeria by the earlier generation of Nigerian graduates, who benefitted from the Chief Obafemi Awolowo Free Education Model of the enviable Western Region.
As Ondo South Undergraduates look forward to the presentation of the hundred million Naira Education Support Fund of The Senator Jimoh Ibrahim Model in September , a new template of students support undoubtedly has come to the fore in Ondo South; a template that will be consolidated as the 2025 edition lays a novel foundation in the district. One can wager that more lofty students support scheme from the Jimoh Ibrahim stable awaits the brainy Ondo South Undergraduates.