Sixty-five Gambian students will soon be leaving for Venezuela to
pursue further studies in the sciences, engineering, medical and
technological fields.
The students were shown on national television last night when they called on President Yahya Jammeh.
They are the largest group to go abroad on a scholarship scheme and the first to Venezuela.
Their selection is as a result of President Jammeh’s intervention with the Venezuelan authorities.
The Gambia has only one university and was without one until recently.
The Gambia and Venezuela have a formal agreement on cooperation in various fields including education.
The scholarships come under the Venezuelan International Scholarship Scheme and those selected are high school graduates who applied for the scholarships in an open competition and interviewed by the scholarship awarding body in Banjul.
Jammeh admonished them to work hard and emulate the example of Gambians on scholarship in Taiwan whose performance has been so good that the Taiwanese authorities no longer question qualifications of Gambian applicants for university study there.
The students were accompanied to State House by Higher Education Minister Crispen Grey-Johnson and other high-ranking officials.
Jammeh gave each student $500 and a lap top computer.