MasterCard Foundation snubs Nigeria, takes Ghana, SA, Uganda for N15.4Bn education partnership

Nigerian universities have missed out on the N15.4Bn ($86M) MasterCard Foundation education intervention.

MasterCard Foundation's Scholars Program aims at educating a new generation of African leaders.

It will support about twenty-three hundred (2300) students in the selected universities, according to a report in the Philanthropy News Digest.

But Nigeria, supposedly the 'Giant of Africa', will miss at as Uganda's Makerere University, South Africa' University of Pretoria or University of Cape Town and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology get the nod.

MasterCard Foundation President and CEO Reeta Roy expressed his delight with the selection in a press release issued today.

"The MasterCard Foundation is excited to have these four new partners joining the program," Roy said.

"These universities are aligned with the foundation's vision of developing Africa's next-generation leaders who will apply their ingenuity and empathy to drive progress in their communities and countries."

The selected institutions will now join a global network of twenty-one partners which includes U.S., Canada, Costa Rica, and Lebanon institutions which participate in the  $500 million program  that was launched in 2012.

With many Nigerian students already embarking on academic pilgrimages to some of these countries, Ghana and South Africa especially, it means a lot more will be heading same direction.

This may in a way be a evidence of the poor image the Nigerian education system cuts.