The Presidential Scholarship should be localized

The Zimbabwe Presidential Scholarship Program, which is currently being awarded to students based in Zimbabwe to study in South Africa, should be localized to the local universities. There are now many universities here in Zimbabwe as compared to in the past. It would be logical for the program to be administered and carried here in Zimbabwe to benefit the local institutions.

Initially the students were enrolled at Fort Hare University where President Robert Mugabe did his first degree and the beneficiaries were from poor backgrounds. However the situation has now changed as the beneficiaries are now from rich and politically connected individuals in society. In the past deserving individuals benefited from the program and it was only done at Fort Hare university and Rhodes University for those doing Medicine.

At the moment the program is being done at many universities in South Africa of which some of them are very expensive and the government is failing to pay the fees on time. Some of the students, if not all of them, are failing to make ends meet in the foreign land and they have been reduced to paupers. It is quite humiliating for the students to be denied their results simply because they have failed to pay the tuition fees while they are on the Presidential scholarship program. This does not humiliate the student only but also the country at large; so its plausible to sponsor the students at our local universities.

 There have been reports in the media of the program being abused by senior government officials who engage in nepotism and corruption in rewarding the scholarships to the beneficiaries. There is need for transparency and accountability in the whole program. We are in dire need for the much needed foreign currency, therefore we should support our local universities rather than export the money in the form of fees. Some of the students have been reported to have failed to come for  vacation due to lack of payment for their allowances so we have to think twice before we send these people to the foreign land.