Nasarawa declares free education for physically-challenged students

The Nasarawa government has declared free education for all physically-challenged students in all the state-owned tertiary institutions.

Rebecca Umaru, provost, College of Education, Akwanga, disclosed this on Tuesday, when she played host to a team led by Hamza Awe, senior special assistant to the governor on disability and social media.

Umaru, who said that government had directed all heads of the institutions to ensure compliance, added that the institution’s management had consequently stopped collecting registration fees from all the physically-challenged students.

“Fees and other charges for all physically-challenged students have been stopped and we are making refund to all those who had paid earlier,” the provost said.

“Any person living with disability who has paid fees or any charges in error should tender receipts to enable us make refund.”

She pointed out that the management of the college had also declared free excursion programmes for the physically-challenged students to any part of the country to support the efforts of the state government.

Umaru assured that they would give priority attention to the physically-challenged students when allocating hostels accommodation to ease their sufferings.

She, however, appealed to the state government to assist the college with permanent staffers who would be scheduled to take care of the special students in the institution.

In her reaction, Awe, the leader of the team, assured the physically-challenged students of Governor Abdullahi Sule’s commitment to addressing their challenges and make life more comfortable for them.

“I want to assure you that the Sule-led administration is giving us a sense of belonging, hence our reason to embark on this advocacy visit to all the tertiary institutions in the state,” she said.

The governor’s aide said that the visit was aimed at rubbing minds with the physically-challenged students in order to address their challenges.