9 July 2009
Lagos — The University of Bolton has teamed up with the former Bolton Wanderers Football Club captain Austin Jay Jay Okocha to provide scholarships to enterprising students from Nigeria. Ten scholarships worth £2,000 (about N476,000) each will be offered to students with a drive to succeed and emulate the success that Okocha has had while playing for a Premier League team, Bolton Wanderers FC.
-The scholarships will provide a valuable structure of financial support to ensure that students of all backgrounds in Nigeria can enjoy the benefits of higher education at the University of Bolton.
-The scholarship beneficiaries will also receive special personally signed congratulatory letters from Jay Jay Okocha as well as 10 Bolton Wanderers Premier League Season tickets of 15 matches.
The University of Bolton was ranked joint third out of 130 universities in the United Kingdom by the Times magazine in 2008. The university offers a full and challenging range of courses, from computing, engineering, business, social sciences to health.
A statement from the school, released to encourage prospective students from Africa, states:" At the University of Bolton we are a community of professionals committed to developing our students for their professional lives.
"With a student body of around 10,000 you will get the best of all worlds at Bolton. Students studying at the University of Bolton come from 43 different countries across the world. You will be based on a modern, compact campus where no one feels anonymous and, with small teaching groups on many courses, you can be sure you are a name, not just a number. Bolton itself is a friendly, thriving town close to the big cities of Manchester and Liverpool.
"There is a careers office on campus to support students to choose the right career paths and to take future into their own hands. Majority of the 550 international students come from Nigeria and our scholarship will be targeting those students who have chosen to study at the University of Bolton."
Semester start dates at the school are in February and September of every year and there is an abundance of university accommodation off the town centre of Bolton. Also, cost of living in the town is one of the cheapest in the UK and students also have access to the campus shop where commodities are even relatively cheaper to buy than they are in town.
Representatives of the University of Bolton are already in the country, and are expected to have interviews with prospective students in Lagos and Abuja till the middle of the month to issue on the spot offers and discuss the scholarship opportunities.
Mr. Jeffrey Williams the Head of International Recruitment said last weekend about the programme: "This scholarship is an exciting opportunity for students and something they will have on their resume for ever. It is great that Jay-Jay Okocha is helping young students reach their dreams by studying in the UK with most students choosing to return to Nigeria post their study and work experience, it can only mean good things for Nigeria's future".
Dr. George Holmes, Vice-chancellor would note: "I really enjoy seeing and meeting Nigerian students on campus, their passion for study and life in general is second to none."
Meanwhile, efforts to reach the Nigerian ex international to find out for how long he hopes to keep his new, laudable programme of career and educational emancipation for young Nigerians alive, has yet to prove successful.
Despite the great times he had in Germany, Okocha had one of his best times in active football while playing for Bolton Wanderers in the English Premier League. In his early years with the team, he almost single-handedly was rescuing the team from relegation.
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