Sokoto: Scholarship bond or bondage?

The Sokoto State Government needs to give a deeper rethink to its intention to compulsorily hold down beneficiaries of its scholarship scheme for 15 years before letting them leave and explore other personal growth opportunities.

At a recent courtesy call by the Sokoto Professionals Association, SPA, in his office, the Deputy Governor, Idris Gobir, disclosed that the government plans to increase the years of compulsory service “to ensure that our investment in human capital does not go to waste. Beneficiaries must give back to the system that supported their academic and professional growth”.

We see this action as retrogressive and an unwholesome grasp of why governments offer scholarships to their deserving youth. Indeed, the need to fill manpower gaps within the machinery of government is a legitimate factor. This had been the trend since pre-independence when indigenes were trained in schools to fill the vacancies being created by the departure of colonial officials.

After 64 years of independence, and in the middle of technology-driven developments, a scholarship bond that ties a beneficiary down for 15 years is no longer a bond; it is a bondage. We understand that Sokoto State, like many others around the Federation, is chiefly a “civil service state”, meaning that majority of the educated class and people in leadership work for government directly and otherwise.

However, we believe that a bond on scholarship beneficiaries should not hold them down for more than five years. Within this period, a government that is serious to bridge manpower gaps in its administrative system through scholarship should have produced enough to allow bondholders to leave if they want to.

We disagree that keeping scholarship beneficiaries under prolonged bonds will cut waste. If anything, it is liable to produce waste, as beneficiaries may lose the ambition and hunger to explore opportunities outside, for self-growth. Over time, the backlog of beneficiaries forced to stay in government service will create deadwoods.

A state in which a majority of the educated class lives off government is backward. The purpose of good government should be to create robust private sector opportunities for young people to thrive, create wealth and employment and thus increase government’s revenue outside the monthly federal allocations.

We are in a democracy, not communist or military dictatorship where the people are bound to the apron strings of government throughout their lives. After a beneficiary has served 15 years of post-scholarship bond, he or she would be too advanced in age to want to leave.

Scholarship schemes should be seen as measures to primarily benefit the people, especially the children of the poor and vulnerable, to enable them contribute to development and well-being. For states, like Sokoto, it should also be designed to reduce the “educational disadvantage” syndrome, which is an embarrassment.

Sign bonds, not bondages. 

The post Sokoto: Scholarship bond or bondage? appeared first on Vanguard News.