A need for Federal Scholarship Board reform

Call it callousness, inordinate treatment, unprofessional managerial dexterity, unsavory detention; there are yet no adjectives that can suit the torment meted out to the conglomerate of young intelligentsias who are seeking for greener pastures outside the shore of the country that forsake them, a quinquagenarian nation drowns in meritocracy. Escaping the empty shell academic institution which was described by Femi Abass, a columnist to the Nation newspaper, as a garden of advanced illiteracy to a propitious land where quality education is given to thirsty academic sojourners. How on earth could such an inhumane welcoming be dished out to the pool of brainy Nigerians who a royal banquet is however thrown for their academic excellence in the foreign land? How I shudder?

Federal Scholarship Board (FSB) is an arm of the Federal Ministry of Education, mandated in the policy formulation and implementation, collation, collection, analysis, publishing and disseminating of data and other information of students matters, scholarship and fellowship awards in relation to Nigeria. The body retrogressed into an antique model of conducting an exercise as they lack a workable blueprint of separating and sieving unqualified applicants, for a few and most competent needed.

It was 2020/2021 Commonwealth Master/Ph.D. scholarship through the nominating agency of FSB. This year’s edition received over four thousand applications through the nominating agency of FSB, compare to last year’s application that received a backward slash in relation to the number of applicants of this year. A total number of 18 scholarships were awarded. Bringing forth the 18 awardees to the present above four thousand applicants, it’s like having a glass of water out of Atlantic Ocean. Can anything be felt? Absolutely no! Many applicants’ morale was abated into a danger zone of pessimism but hang their dwindling sanguine on the credence of the mastery of the immortal as the worrisome statistics were broken out.

As scheduled, the programme commenced on the 25th November 2019 with the opening ceremony slated for 10:00 to 11:30 in the morning, followed concomitantly by accreditation and interview of applicants. However, the portentous coinage and invented Africa time that permeate the Negro society gave aspirants the unwanted delay, pausing the programme till after 12 noon, waiting for the arrival of the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education to declare the occasion opened. Many candidates got an unpalatable automatic offer of standing posture similitude to that of a three-man statue of ebute-meta, Lagos state. Emanating from the poky hall capacity they opted for. I started imagining how a full-grown ministry couldn’t complement the population with a corresponding hall since the statistics are at hand. A newbie sociological traits of a nascent NGOs exhibited by a leading ministry. Dejected mood, I switched!

No doubt, education is a light that liberates the souls from ignorance, set-free victims of benightedness and keep a nation foot firm on the mountain of progression. Honourable minister sir, getting such an anti-retrogression weaponry tool shouldn’t be a struggle of survival or the journey of the people of Israelites. China’s footsteps should be followed in this case, when she started building her nation with gargantuan investment in her citizens’ education by sending them abroad to learn and to come back to replicate what they have learnt in the country.

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Are there no more functionaries FSB at the state level? Can’t there be a compendious reengineering of state FSB for a better service? Yobe state FSB earns my unadulterated respect as they proved their exemplary academic humanitarian service. I showered encomium on them for their exceptional educational welfarism.

FSB got the monopoly power as the known and recognised nominating agency in Nigeria if not, many applicants would have taken up to their heels for a well organised and more transparent body that doesn’t barter meritocracy for mediocrity.

This monopolistic attribution of FSB yielded them a confidential immunity to disclose some relevant information to the concerned public in furtherance to their application. Thence, milking out the little moola candidates have on them to the luxury business centers of Abuja cosmopolites.

Many ordeals of this country do not flag down my flabbergasted vehicle because I have been fed with a number bewilderment and as the elders have it, they said: “nothing is new under the sun”. Howbeit, I must beckon for my audience’s attention for this compassionless narration.

Night classes have been the academic experience of our undergraduate and postgraduate students in Nigeria tertiary institutions. An infinitesimal number of students will scale through the process of not experiencing the marathon night of reading. FSB, an infant associate just got a license to operate in the night tournament of intellectuals programme. Thus, entering the TRUST group for effective competition.

It saddens my heart to see the young growing scholars sleeping on the floor and combining chairs to pass the night, loosing the hell of sufferings on these agents of development through the FSB amateurish administration. Even those that went through the interview that night did it on evaporated brain with their assessors conjunctively worn-out. What a temporary fusion of empty barrels of sagacious minds!

Unarguable,  application for such free learning tickets will be colossal but a modern and global method of screening ought to be imbibed instead of the archaic approach of assessment.

Bureaucratically done, a half-baked prospectus was released spelling out the requirements for the programme. The next line of action should have been an opening of a portal where all applicants would upload their documents and unqualified applicants with uncompleted documents would have been screened out, thereby, having a cut down in the population. This will save the body from adamant candidates, who despite not meeting the criteria, came. The next stage would be a CBT exercise in the six geopolitical zones across the country, having such will avert unwaning hours on the road to the FCT or any other road catastrophes that might happen. Essay writing exercise could be introduced to filter the unwanted from the wanted. The concluding part of the exercise will be an invitation for an interview for the shortlisted successful candidates in Abuja where they will be thoroughly screened because of the minute number of them we have left. This would make the work easy for the agency and pave them a way where the most qualified applicants will emerge. Lest I forgot, those applicants that made it to Abuja should be reimbursed for their transportation fare.

Restructuring has been an indisputable generally acceptable recommendation among Nigerians to the country diagnose. Implementing such a therapeutic solution across the country without a political bamboozling will fetch the nation a renewal of life. And importing the Chinese acupuncture practice for the FSB ailment, for a quick recovery will reposition it for the 3Es'(Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Economy).

DaudaTaoheed writes in from Lagos via Dawood.taoheed94@gmail.com