Hundreds of students of Bayero University are to benefit with the indigent scholarship scheme from corporate bodies and other wealthy individuals to pay for their registration.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Sagir Adamu Abbas, disclosed this on Thursday, 10th August, 2023 when he received members of the Kano State Nigeria Union of Journalists Correspondents' Chapel in his office.
He noted that many wealthy individuals have responded to solicitations made by the Management on the need to come to the aid of the needy students.
"As at last count over 500 students have gotten sponsorships from various individuals and corporate bodies, notable among whom are the Senator representing Kano Central, Senator Rufa'i Sani Hanga, who pledged to pay for 200 students. He said Alhaji Auwalu Abdullahi Rano, a business mogul also promised to sponsor students from the three senatorial districts of Kano State.
The Vice Chancellor added that a member representing Bichi Federal Constituency, Honourable Kabiru Abubakar Kabir has been sponsoring over 100 students over the years, in addition to Honorable Alhasan Ado Doguwa, who promised to sponsor many students," said the VC.
Professor Abbas explained that the decision to increase the registration fee was necessitated by the current economic realities and high cost of running the institution.
He noted that, contrary to the insinuation against the university authority over the new charges, Prof Abbas explained that BUK charges the least registration fee in the entire northern Nigeria.
He further explained that the University management spends over N100 million monthly on electricity, water supply, security among other municipal services to run the university and keep teaching and learning at its best, explaining that there was no deliberate plan to make life difficult or deny students access to education.
The VC disclosed that the university received about N11 million monthly from the Federal government as overhead cost, the amount which he said was only received four times in the last eight months.
" Before the university came up with the current fee, we did a general analysis of the cost of everything we dispense and the final fee is the minimum to run the system. Anything below that standard will fall short and that will negatively affect the academic and administrative system.
In a related development, the national body of the Nigerian Universities Engineering Students Association (NUESA) has paid registration for 39 undergraduate students in different fields of studies.
The President of the association, comrade Umar Ibrahim Farouk, stated this on Tuesday, 8th August, 2023 when they visited the Vice Chancellor, Professor Sagir Adamu Abbas and presented the list of the beneficiary students.
Comrade Farouk explained that the project has been on for many years in which members tasked themselves to generate money and pay for some indigent students across universities. It was this time that they paid about four million Naira to the BUK students.
In his response, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Sagir Adamu Abbas commended the benevolence of the association and urged other bodies to emulate. He said education is the responsibility of all and that the earlier we adopt the policy of helping one another, the better for our generation and the society.
The beneficiary students are from the Faculty of Engineering, Computing, Clinical Sciences and Allied Health Sciences.