(ERGO) – Hiba Mohamed Abdullahi graduated with the highest mark at Sheikh Hussein Aden High School in the southern Somali town of Jowhar and is among 35 top-scoring students to secure scholarships to a local university.
Hibo, 18, comes from a farming family whose livelihood was adversely affected by the recurrent flooding of the river Shabelle. Her family could not have afforded to send her to university, so she studied extra hard to win the scholarship.
“I’m one of the five students with the highest marks at their high schools. I’m really happy about this and so are my parents. I want to study nursing,” she said.
Hibo is now in her third week at Plasma University. Her 16-year-old sister was also granted a 20 per cent reduction on university fees due to the family’s low income status.
Abdullahi Sheikh Bashir, the deputy head of Plasma University’s Jowhar campus, told Radio Ergo that the scholarships supported bright students from low-income families. They had increased the number of scholarships provided this year from 10 to 35.
Mahad Abdullahi Muse, who graduated in 2018 from Imam Shafi’i High School in Jowhar, also won a scholarship. He had been prevented from joining university due to lack of funds.
Mahad is now studying computer science at Plasma University, having considered going abroad.
“I heard an announcement on the radio saying that the university welcomed students who just graduated from high schools as well as others to compete for scholarships. I took up the chance and it went well,” he said.
The Jowhar campus has 240 students enrolled in various courses. The deputy head of the campus told Radio Ergo that the university has an incentive scheme to encourage and reward excellence.
“The university has an established system of rewarding high performing students, regardless of their ability to pay. Any student who scores the highest mark during the term gets full scholarship the next term. If they keep up their performance, they get another full scholarship for the following term. However if their scores dip, they pay full fees like the rest. We do that to encourage students to aim high,” he said.
