Eden University has awarded 21 scholarships to best performing students from Mushota village in Pambashe Constituency of Luapula Province in various programmes including education and health sciences.

University executive director Kelvin Kaunda explained to News Diggers that the scholarship package had been named after the Pambashe lawmaker Ronald Chitotela, who is also Infrastructure Development Minister.

And Chitotela said it was humbling to note that the University had decided to name the scholarship package after him, adding that it would give a sense of ownership to the people of Pambashe and the second contingent of recipients.

“As a University, we take pride in having produced some of the best minds in various discipline such as Nurses, Environmental Health Technologist, Clinical officer’s, Teachers and Pharmacists among others. I am happy to indicate that while a good number of candidates failed [in the last exams], our university recorded a 100 per cent pass rate. We are consciously aware that it will be failure on the part of our mission, if society as a whole does not reflect significant change for better as a result of our strategic presence in their midst as such such we would like to appeal to the government to consider deploying these recipients of the scholarships to Pampashe Constituency so that our people there can benefit from this noble initiative. We decided to name the scholarships after the minister because we are grateful to his leadership. We thank him for having chosen our University out of many Universities in this country to train the recipients of the Ronald Chitotela scholarships. As a University, we will ensure that we bring back to Pambashe constituency graduates who will be worth both in character and knowledge,” sad Kaunda.

And in acknowledging the scholarships in a separate interview with News Diggers! Chitotela encouraged the recipients of the scholarships to put the opportunity to good use.

“I am very humbled by this gesture from Eden University. I believe that the best gift you can give to any citizen in the world is education. I must state that this the second time that this this is running, we gave the first 10 students in 2015 and some of them who are doing Secondary Education will be graduating this year. But those who are in Clinical Medicine will be graduating in 2020 because its a five-year programme. So because Eden University has seen how committed these students are, we have collaborated with them and we were requested also to invest K165,000 which will be paying slowly and they have accepted to take on additional students. My dream is that when I have left Pambashe constituency, we must be able to produce a Doctor, we must be able to produce a member of parliament that will be able to take over from me and the only way we can do that is by giving people education. Education is the only was to make people relevant on the international platform. So I am grateful to Eden University and I pray that they continue helping the needy in society because education is the best equalizer,” said Chitotela.

He encouraged the beneficiaries to work hard and become productive and responsible citizens in future.

“It is not their right, it’s a privilege and they must cherish this because there are millions of Zambians out there who would be happy to receive the same education scholarship that they have received. So I want to urge them that when they start going to school, they must realise that they are there for their future benefit. There is a saying that ‘suffer the present and enjoy the future’. They must understand that what has been given to them is preparing them to become good and responsible citizens future. My desire is that after they have graduated, they must be willing to go and serve the people of Pambashe because that is the only way they can give back to the community and realise that it is not their right but a privilege that they must cherish,” said Chitotela.