By Bida Elly David
The embassy of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia has granted scholarships to fifteen (15) civil servants who shall undertake master degree program for two years.
The government of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia has been contributing a lot towards offering various scholarships to South Sudanese in most of the Universities in Ethiopia.
The sisterly Country to South Sudan has recently offered free master degree scholarships to a number of medical doctors working in the national ministry of health.
This time, the Embassy has also made a move to offer master degree program scholarship to fifteen government officials to undertake various trainings in different faculties at the Civil Service University of Ethiopia.
Speaking during the farewell ceremony of the scholars, Awadia Gabriel, the director general of human resource development in the national ministry of public service said that the selection of the civil servants for the program was fairly done as most of the students came from various ministries in the government.
She said that hard work, good reputation and discipline were some of the criteria used during the selection process in the ministries concerned.
She as well reiterated that the current students shall be the fifth batch ever since Ethiopia started rendering the academic offer to the Country.
Awadia added that the scholarship was interrupted by the influx of the Covid-19 pandemic that broke out and kept many people at lock for number of months without access to full services.
She encouraged the students to put much focus in academics rather than wasting time in other activities that would bear no benefit to their livelihoods.
“I congratulate the government of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia for having accepted our staff and students for the master’s program in the Civil Service University. This scholarship has been existing since 2013 and continued until today. The program was interrupted by Covid-19 but I am very proud with the bilateral relationship between the government of South Sudan and Ethiopia,” she said.
Meanwhile Amb. Nebil Mahdi, the Ethiopian envoy to South Sudan said Ethiopia and South Sudan were determined to help themselves right from the previous regime.
He said that the scholarship offered to the government officials was a symbol of the positive relationships that the two governments have among themselves.
Nebil stated out that the fifteen students selected from the various ministries shall undertake their post graduate studies in different faculties and be awarded with masters upon completion.
He noted that Ethiopia has been rendering academic scholarships to 150 South Sudanese yearly but there would be a chance to increase the number to 300 students yearly.
He urged the students to seriously invest much of their efforts in academics until they end their programs successfully.
He pointed out that Ethiopia has laid a strategy to offer Philosophy of high degree (PhD) to South Sudanese as soon as possible and commended the Ministry of public service for the fair selection process of the students.