Lagos – The Bethesda Home for the Blind, Mushin in Lagos State says its 23 candidates that succeeded at the 2016 UTME may face challenges securing placements into respective universities of their choices because of lack of sponsorship and paucity of funds.
Mrs Chioma Ohakwe, the Proprietress of the home, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos.
NAN reports that 23 of the visually challenged candidates of the home wrote the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) all Computer Based Test (CBT) examination.
The proprietress told NAN that the performance of the candidates were encouraging with the highest posting 268 marks while the least candidate scored 218 marks.
According to her, it will be disheartening if the dreams of the candidates are allowed to die mid-way.
“Getting to the peak of their academic quest is the only sure way to empower them and take them away from the streets, unemployment and poverty.
“We have over the years been appealing to all tiers of government, individuals and corporate organisations to come to our aid in providing scholarship for these young Nigerians.
“We must realise the fact that these persons are part of us and we must do all we can to encourage them, as we firmly believe that there is ability in every disability.
“We have done all we can in pleading with concerned authorities to assist us in seeing them through school but I must say that the responses so far have not been encouraging.
“I want to believe that we have not been creating enough sensitisation or awareness concerning this group of people and what they do in here,’’ she said.
Ohakwe said the home was facing paucity of fund in carrying out such awareness through the mass media, particularly on the television stations.
She said alternatively, they turned to places of worships, sending letters and sometimes visiting them, requesting for dates they could be allowed to come and do some forms of presentation to the congregations, who knows, God can touch somebody.
“We have resorted to visiting places of worship requesting when it will be convenient for them to allow us visit them, do special numbers, market ourselves and then seek assistance.
“But even these places seem not to be helping much because they will keep postponing such appointments till when it was convenient for them.
“They can actually make this postponement span through a period of four years.
“They keep telling us they have programmes that will run all through the entire period of the service and that there is no time to accommodate their request for the main time,’’ she lamented.
Ohakwe pleaded with the faith-based organisations to give the students a chance so that they can display their talents as well as appeal for assistance.
The NAN reports that the Registrar of the JAMB, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, had promised all visually impaired candidates that attempted the examination and meet the cut-off marks of automatic placement in universities of their choice nationwide. (NAN)
