The Federal Government, through the Federal Scholarship Board, has sent payment mandates to foreign embassies where foreign scholars under the Federal Government’s Bilateral Educational Agreement scholarship are schooling, emerging details made available to Journalist revealed
The BEA scholarship is for the purpose of education exchange between Nigeria and the partnering countries.
The Federal Scholarship Board is supervising the scholarship under the Federal Ministry of Education.
Earlier, report noted how the Federal Ministry of Education announced a slash in allowances for foreign scholars, who are currently stranded in Russia, Morocco, and Algeria, among others.
The scholars had also been owed for several months with a number of them confirming that they had resorted to taking loans to survive.
The ministry attributed the allowance cut to economic crises.
“After due consultations, the Federal Scholarship Board has come up with adjustments in line with budgetary provisions in the payment of BEA scholar’s supplementation allowances for the 2024 academic year,” the memo, dated July 23, 2024, and addressed to the scholars’ association, read.
One of the leaders of the scholars’ association in Russia, Ronald Donald, noted that the scholars were aware that a payment mandate had been sent to the various embassies.