Ebonyi State Governor, Engr. David Umahi, has awarded University scholarships to four Junior Secondary Students for their outstanding performance in Mathematics and Oral Mental Arithmetic competitions.

He announced this during presentation of the students to the State Executive Council at the Government House, Abakaliki on Wednesday.

The four students are Miss Igwe Amarachi from Government Technical College Agba, who was the overall best competitor; Miss Ikechukwu Mary from Uburu Secondary School; Sorochukwu Nwefuru from Government Technical College, Abakaliki and Ori Catherine from Government Technical College Agba.

Umahi, according to a statement on Friday by his Chief Press Secretary, Emma Anya, was particularly impressed with the intelligence displayed by the students while answering questions on the subjects without using four figure table or calculator.

He said that the fund for them to study Medicine after their secondary education would be made available to them ahead of time to ensure that nothing constitutes a barrier to their study.

The Governor directed his Personal Assistant, Mr. Silas Onu, to liaise with the parents of the children to open accounts for them, adding that payment of their school fees into the accounts would commence next week.

Clarifying that the money would not be accessed until they gained admission into the university, Umahi said the scholarship would last for six years.

“I will pay your school fees for Medicine in advance. We’ll open accounts for four of you and I will know how much the school fees for each and every one of you is. I will pay the money into the accounts. It will stay there so that as you enter the university, you will not have problem of school fees. We will tell the bank not to release the money until you start university education,” the Governor said.

In an interview, one of the organisers of the programme, Mr. Alike Friday, said that students from 12 schools drawn from the three senatorial district of the state participated in the training. He explained that they were taught how to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and others off hand.

Friday disclosed that 37 students were chosen for the competition by the National Mathematical Centre out of the 124 who took part in the two weeks training.

Responding on behalf of others, the best student, Miss Amarachi, expressed her gratitude to Governor Umahi for the gesture and appealed that more students be allowed to participate in the exercise in future to enable them benefit.

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