HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT
OF THE FOUNDATION
The inspiration for the Prince Lt. Col (Rtd) Samuel Adeleye Agbede Scholarship and Bursary award Foundation was birthed on the 2nd of February, 2004, while celebrating the 70th Birthday of the Founder, Prince Lt. Colonel (rtd) Samuel Adeleye Agbede at St. Paul’s Anglican Church Igbara Oke. He set up the foundation as a non-profit, non-political orgnisation for the educational benefit of the people of Igbara-Oke and Ikota Communities as well as to empower the girl child. At the heart of the founder of the foundation has always been the desire to empower the less privileged but brilliant children of Igbara-Oke and Ikota communities of Ondo State with the most important tool for progress in life which is, EDUCATION. Igbara-Oke and Ikota being the hometown of the father and mother respectively of the founder, he sincerely desires that children from these communities become credible citizens that will contribute their quota to the development of their respective communities, and the nation at large. To achieve the stated objectives, a governing board comprising of reputable and accomplished individuals in the community was constituted to run the foundation.
Starting from July 2004, Application Forms were made available to prospective candidates in the community. Eligibility criteria includes:
- Candidates must be indigenes of Igbara –Oke and Ikota communities.
- Course of study must be: Quantity Surveying, Architecture, Engineering and any of the Medical Sciences.
- Candidates must be in good academic standing with very good O’ Level exam results.
PROGRESS AND ACHIEVEMENT
Screening of candidates starts by October of every year. The Board reviews all applications and shortlists qualified candidates for interviews, based on which the two best candidates are selected, from Igbara Oke and One candidate from Ikota, based on the criteria stated above. Each successful candidate receives the total sum of N25,000 per semester, towards tuition fees to any public university in Nigeria throughout their period of study, subject to maintaining a grade point average of 2.75 at the end of the preceding semester. A few years ago, the Founder extended the bursary to the Secondary School level where the two best female students in Mathematics from JSS 2 to JSS 3 from the two public Schools in Igbara Oke received Bursary Awards. This is for the encouragement of Girl Child Education in Science and Mathematics. This gesture has now been extended to the two private secondary schools in Igbara Oke.
As at November 2019, the Foundation has awarded about 40 Scholarships. The Foundation is proud to note that there have been beneficiaries that graduated in Medicine, Dentistry, Quantity Surveying, Engineering and other professional courses. Some graduated with First Class degrees while some have, after graduation, gone on to obtain Masters’ degrees and even PhDs.
A number of beneficiaries have secured employment and are already making valuable contributions to society, thereby fulfilling the desires of the Founder and realising one of the major objectives of the Foundation. To date, four of the beneficiaries have built upon this solid foundation, improved on their career development and earned further qualifications to become Lecturers at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State.
It is also worthy of note that there has been an appreciable increase in the number of students applying for the Scholarships over the last couple of years. This points to the increasing interest of candidates from the two communities to study professional courses at the tertiary level, compared to the situation when the award was inaugurated.
A Board of Trustees has recently been constituted to relate with the existing Governing Council of the Foundation and to facilitate the smooth running of the Scholarship / Bursary Award Programme. The Founder is committed, more than ever before, to continue touching as many lives as possible through this worthy initiative.