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The Executive Chairman of the Nekotech Centre of Excellence, Rev. Dr Princess Ocansey, has said Africa has a huge potential to change her fortunes if the continent’s young people take advantage of scholarships and favourable loan arrangements available for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education in the United States of America and Canada.
She said out of the over 1.1 million foreign students currently in the USA, about 750,000 of them were Asians mostly in the STEM field, thereby impacting their lives and changing many narratives from poverty to prosperity.
Rev. Dr Ocansey was speaking at the virtual launch of the SOS-NEKOTECH-USA-Canada Master’s degree work-study programme on July 20, 2023.
The virtual launch had participants from over 12 African countries in attendance.
The initiative aims at providing scholarships and no collateral educational loans for young Africans aspiring to pursue Master's degrees in STEM in the USA and Canada.
The collateral-free loan is an initiative between SOS Labour and Nekotech Centre of Excellence, known as SOS-NEKOTECH.
While SOS-NEKOTECH deals directly with universities in Canada, it partners with Educo-USA for universities in the USA.
The Nekotech Centre Executive Director explained that the project currently had many students in the USA undergoing their STEM master's degrees and working successfully, having been fully funded through the no collateral loan programme, for as much as $100,000 per candidate.
She pointed out that candidates would pay back the loans while working in the USA/Canada for three years after two years of their STEM and artificial intelligence (AI) master's degree programmes.
“The USA allows for a three-year Optional Practical Training (OPT) of full-time work for STEM candidates, during which time the candidates earn $60,000 to $250,000 a year and can pay back their loans,” she explained.
As a former USA STEM student herself, and a graduate of Rutgers University's College of Engineering in New Jersey, Rev. Dr Ocansey said India pursued a vigorous STEM education route for her youth and the result partly reflected in the over $85 billion in remittances India enjoyed annually, while that of Africa was $46 billion.
“Apart from that, Indian students have been able to attract top US tech giants, where they worked during their OPT in the US.
“My hope is that African leaders will take note and do the same to drive jobs home to end the chronic African youth unemployment,” she added.
For her part, the Vice-President of Liberia, Jewel Howard-Taylor, praised the Nekotech Centre for introducing such a ground-breaking programme to help accelerate development on the continent.
According to the Liberian Vice- President, the opportunity to acquire skills and knowledge was what African youths needed to enhance their capacity to fend for themselves and also contribute meaningfully to their countries.
The Executive Director of Nekotech Centre, Ida Abbeyquaye, indicated that the programme was open to applicants aged between 21 and 40, who hold a bachelor's degree.
