Amnesty office redesigns scholarship scheme to focus on STEM
The Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Col. Milland Dikio (retd.), said he was stunned by the discovery of huge misapplication of human and material resources upon his assumption office.
According to him, a quality education-driven survey he carried out on the types of schools that beneficiaries of the PAP’s scholarship scheme were sent to in the past led to the discovery of the anomaly.
Dikio stated this when he visited the Ijaw National Congress headquarters in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, over the weekend.
He said the amnesty office had redesigned the scholarship scheme by prioritising four courses to align the manpower needs of the Niger Delta to the present realities.
He said henceforth, the PAP scholarship scheme would focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, stressing that the region must field its best to compete with other ethnic nationalities in the country.
The PAP boss, who noted that the humanities were also important, said, “When I came on board, I saw quite a lot of misapplication of human and material resources and so, we started asking the question: Are we getting the best for our people?
“For example, when we carried out a survey of the universities we sent our beneficiaries to, only two came within the first 100. So, if the likes of our heroes like Isaac Boro went to the best schools in Nigeria, how come we are paying good money to send our children to poor schools?”
Dikio further said the PAP master’s degree scholarship scheme would be focused on raising people, who possessed the skills to belong to “the boardroom” and participate effectively in decision-making.
He congratulated the new leadership of the INC, describing the members’ election as a pacesetter and a solution to voting problems in the country.
The INC President, Prof Benjamin Okaba, while welcoming the amnesty boss and his team, said Dikio had provided a paradigm shift through his style and disposition.
