Federal Government Slashes Stranded Foreign Scholars’ Allowances

The Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Education has slashed the allowances of foreign scholars by 12.7%.

This comes after Nigerian students studying in Russia, Morocco, Algeria, China, Hungary, and other countries on the Federal Government’s scholarship lamented their unpaid stipends for over eight months.

The students are studying under the Federal Government’s Bilateral Educational Agreement (BEA) Scholarship for education exchange between Nigeria and the partnering countries.

The Federal Scholarship Board is supervising the scholarship under the Federal Ministry of Education.

In a memo signed by the Director of the Federal Scholarship Board, Ndajiwo H.A., on behalf of the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, the Ministry of Education attributed the allowance slash to current economic crises.

According to the memo, the FG slashed monthly allowances from $500 to $220, the graduation allowance from $2500 to $2000, and the PG research allowance from $1,000 to $500, among others.