Home Benefit of Commonwealth Scholarship - Nigeria

Please I need help on this commonwealth scholarship essay. I need a critical review from anyone in the house. Thank you all.

Question

Benefit To Your Home Country

Commonwealth Scholarships in the United Kingdom receive funding from the UK Department for International Development. An important selection criterion is therefore the potential contribution that you will make to development if you receive a Commonwealth Shared Scholarship. You must provide a statement (limit of 500 words) explaining how your proposed study relates to a development need.

You are advised in your statement to describe how your plan of study relates to development in your sector and country. Please say how, on your return, you will apply your new skills and qualifications, and what outcomes you will hope to achieve. This could usefully be related to a national development priority or objective. Please also suggest how the impact of the potential benefits of your work might be measured.

My Answer

Since Nigeria's independence in October 1960, mass literacy had been on the front burner of the country's educational policy. Right from 1970's, there had been proliferation of policies to reposition educational system within the country. As a result of recognition of the importance of an educated nation, privatization and commercialization efforts had been a running war to reposition public education through various measures in order to provide qualitative education, accommodate increased interest; as well as compete with other nation's academic system.

In spite of undying zest for improvement of public educational system at all levels in the country, less had been achieved over the years. Service delivery just like most public sectors within the country had been very inadequate. Minimum results are being achieved compared to huge efforts. However this failure cannot be isolated from inadequate managerial and professional manpower in the sector. No doubt, for policy enacted to come to fruition, the administrative structures created for its implementation must be handled by adequate professionals. This connote that for Nigerian government to accomplish its goals aimed at national development through education, public administrative structures which focuses in the implementation of public sectors policies; must receive utmost attention.

My quest to engage in the race of moving Nigerian public sectors forward, especially the educational sector which determines the 'products' of the society led to my study of Public Administration at undergraduate level. The knowledge I had gained in comparative administration and my desire to advance my career in the field, is the reason for my decision to continue at a postgraduate level which will create an avenue for me to build upon my analytical and problem solving skills which the study offers.

Without doubt, I believe if I am considered for this scholarship, the skills to be taught in Queen Mary University of London and the postgraduate degree I will obtain, on my return after my studies I will join the Public institution as a university lecturer which will provide an avenue for me to participate in teaching, research and helping the government to develop and implement its policies geared towards citizens welfare.

The skills I will acquire through the scholarship will help me achieve my career and professional goals, towards repositioning Nigerian public education system for prompt and efficient service delivery that will enhance social economic development.

Finally, with the knowledge I will gather, I hope to contribute to national development by creating an awareness programme to enlighten and eradicate phobia held by most parents especially in the Northern part of Nigeria about Western education, and the need to avail their children opportunities provided by the government. This in effect will reduce the rate of illiteracy and encourage mass education including Girl Child education which the country aspires for.

@Knockout

Nothing that you wrote is in line with the prompt requirements. The expectation of the reviewer who will be reading this essay will be to learn the topic of your thesis project which should show a direct relation to your government's literacy policies. The only way you will win this scholarship is if you can indicate the government program that you will be supporting with these studies, how you plan to implement your thesis plan upon graduation, and how the scholarship committee can monitor the success or failure of your program.

The indications in your essay show that your government does not have a clear literacy policy and you have no program of implementation for any program other than becoming a teacher in your country. Review the prompt requirements again, if you follow this line of presentation, you will be disqualified from consideration because you do not mention a specific government program, your plan to assist in the government program, how it can be implemented upon your return, and how the scholarship can evaluate the success of your project.

Needless to say, you need to create a different version of your essay. Once that shows that you have reviewed your government literacy projects, you have identified a specific part of the program that you can participate in after you graduate, and that you have thoroughly worked out a plan of action for implementation upon return to your home country. Most specially, you need to explain how you plan to justify the measure of success of this project when required to do so by the scholarship foundation.

@Holt
Thank you very much for a critical look at my work. I guess I will have to find a programme of the government and support such through by study as you have rightly suggested.

Thanks

Merged:

Home Benefit of commonwealth scholarship

Hi Holt, thank you for the last review of my essay. In line with your suggestion, I have identified a programme to support with my essay. I will appreciate a critical review from the house as well. Thank you all.

Good revision. You covered all of the major points required to create a notable post study plan. However, you still have not created a method by which the success of your program can be measured by the scholarship foundation after you have graduated. I don't think that vying for an educator position is the best way to show a solid plan for helping your country. As an educator or published researcher, you won't really be able to say something like "the measure of success of my program can be seen in the way the countryside economy will produce a rise in their income by about 5 percent over a period of 5 years, meaning the economic growth will be one percent per year" or something to that effect. That is the kind of quantifiable reference to success measurement that this scholarship grant requires.

@Holt
Thank you so much Holt. I will work on it and repost..
If I understand you, the problem with the essay is just how to measure the impact of my work. So just a paragraph right?

That depends. It could be more than a single paragraph depending upon the steps that are necessary to measure the achievement. For every step required in the process, there should be one achievement included at the end. Discussing each step in totality to represent the achievement will indicate a measurable type of success in your program implementation. That means, you will have to extend your discussion by a number of paragraphs. At the end of the presentation, you can conclude by saying that "The total measure of the success of the program comes when the results of the previous steps indicate a ..." or a variation of that statement. Tell you what, develop your measurable paragraph / statements, then post it here for review. That way I can tell you what works and what doesn't. If possible, we might even be able to combine some paragraphs to save on space and presentation time.