The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, Anambra State has awarded scholarships worth of N1.5million to 30 indigent students of the University.
The beneficiaries are to receive N50,000 each for the 2019/2020 academic session. The beneficiaries were selected across faculties of the university.
At the award presentation at the University Auditorium, the ASUU-NAU Chairperson, Comrade Stephen Ufoaroh, said the gesture would be annual and part of ASUU-NAU social responsibility to the students and their parents.
He added that members had tasked themselves to raise the fund for the scholarship to support indigent students who were unable to pay their school fees. He expressed optimism that the assistance will reduce school dropouts and its attendant criminality.
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He said, “Despite the fact that all academic staff of the university are owed salaries between four and twelve months, ASUU-NAU members still saw the need to help in alleviating the suffering of our students, who have also borne the pain of the ruling class insensitivity to the plights of the masses of this country.
“The scholarship award is another evidence that ASUU, as a union, understands the plight of our students and as such we will go any length to protect the interest of our students, which has made us to resist every attempt by the Federal Government to introduce tuition fees in public universities.”
He then urged the beneficiaries to deploy the funds for the purpose it was meant. The academia further challenged the students to see ASUU as partners in the struggle to save the soul of public universities, calling them to support the body in its struggle to compel the government to fund education in Nigeria.