After several months of painstaking research by a group of skilled analysts in Phillips Consulting Limited, the company’s Afroscholars initiative is now ready to roll. An aggregation of over 10, 000 scholarships and grants in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Nigeria for now, www.afroscholars.com is an online resource providing accurate, comprehensive and meaningful information on scholarships for which Africans are eligible. The goal is to contribute to the immense development of human and intellectual capacity of the African continent.

It also provides visa and travel information on destinations of interest, as well as e-learning tools that assist aspiring scholars to prepare for qualifying exams such as GMAT, GRE, SAT and so on. The portal consists of paid and unpaid sections and access to the paid sections is granted via tenured access pins available for as low as N100.

To strengthen the reach and range of the initiative and to ensure its sustainability, Phillips Consulting, last Tuesday, signed an agreement with UBA Group, through the UBA Foundation and MTN Nigeria.

At the formal signing ceremony, the Executive Director of Phillips Consulting, Mrs. Adedoyin Odunfa, said, “The portal is targeted primarily at students of secondary schools and tertiary institutions as well as young persons in the workforce, who still desire to further their education either locally or internationally. The initiative is also endorsed by the UNESCO office in Nigeria.”

Whereas “international scholarships and grants are targeted at the so called developed countries or first world”, Odunfa said, “there are actually lots of scholarships targeted at the developing world, but finding them is time intensive, tedious and for many, simply an exercise in frustration.”

On the partnership between the three companies, the Executive Director, Group Shared Services of the UBA Group, Mr. Phillips Oduoza said “UBA, through its Foundation, will collaborate with its two partners to provide access to over 10,000 scholarships/grants from the foremost educational institutions globally. This will enable Africans benefit from important developments worldwide and be powerful agents of change who will contribute positively to growth in the continent.

“With its pan-African focus, the Afroscholars project closely follows UBA’s aspirations to dominate with strong footprints in the African market. UBA Foundation, through its education programs, has established its own scholarships. This close linkage is one of the reasons why the Afroscholars project was viewed with such excitement when it was first proposed.

Oduoza, who was represented by the General Manager, Electronic and Transaction Banking Suite, Mr. Tunji Adesida said, “MTN and UBA already share a strong partnership through which the dominant GSM operator, with an unprecedented network reach, and the leading Financial Services Group in Nigeria, with over 430 branches nationwide, will provide superior solutions which will benefit all Nigerian consumers. This alliance with Phillips Consulting, the pre-eminent Consulting Firm in Nigeria, to support a noble initiative merely consolidates the existing partnership. We believe with the calibre of the partners collaborating in this venture, education will never be the same again for Africans.”

MTN’s General Manager - Consumer Marketing, Mr. Olu Akanmu described scholarship as a barrier breaker that “provides opportunities for all to get the best of education, as long as they are qualified, irrespective of their social or economic backgrounds. Such democratisation of opportunities and access is what MTN has done with telecommunications in Nigeria.”

He said his company believes that “the project will contribute to building our human resource capacity for long term economic growth. The Afroscholar project by enabling scholarship, education and information for Nigerian youths also connects them to abundant life opportunities. (It) will democratise life opportunities for Nigerian youths by providing them information that moves them ahead in their world, connects them to their dreams and fulfills their long term hopes and aspiration.”

While noting that the three essentials of life, in the past, were food, shelter and clothing; Akanmu said, “today, there are now four basic essentials of life - food, shelter, clothing and information. MTN service, apart from enabling Nigerians to build relationships that matter to them, also provides our people access to essential information to move them ahead in life.

To use the portal, three payment platforms are operational: An MTN short code; the InterSwitch Debit/ATM Card and Pin Mailers which will be available at UBA branches and MTN Friendship Centre Nationwide. To make it affordable, access is tenured and repeat visits are expected. Research is on-going to cover other parts of the world such as Canada, Australia, other parts of Europe and Asia. The initiative which is being rolled out in Nigeria first, is to be rolled out rapidly across the rest of the continent. Dakar, Senegal is the springboard for the roll-out in French-speaking Africa in January next year; to be followed in February, by the roll-out in English-speaking Africa, beginning with Ghana and Kenya.

Other roll-out activities, scheduled to begin early next month, include capacity building forum for the press, corporate launch in secondary and tertiary institutions, unveiling of the site, university roadshows and regional launches in the six geo-political zones, among others.

Akanmu pledged that “MTN will be with the Afroscholar’s project team on its road shows, on campuses and every where. We shall also make available our services and technologies to enable hassle- free access to Afroscholar services. Let our youths and indeed our nation fulfil their dreams and “be what they want to be.”

Copyright © 2006 This Day. All rights reserved.

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 12:45 am and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: Education News, Grant, Scholarship, Student, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.