KAMPALA — Thirty underprivileged but bright students from Uganda’ Makerere University received scholarships on Thursday from the Chinese embassy in Kampala.
At the award ceremony, Chinese ambassador Zheng Zhuqiang said China will continue to support Uganda’s education sector.
“Together we could build the future, a better future for Uganda and a future shared by a closer community between China and Uganda,” he said.
Looking back at the journey of China in the past 70 years, Zheng said, there are valuable historical inspirations that can be shared.
“United, our two countries could jointly build an even closer community with a shared future,” he said.
Aggrey Kibenge, an official from the ministry of education and sports, said the scholarships are critical in helping build critical human capital that is important to nurture growth and productivity.
“It is our hope that China and Uganda will continue to cooperate further and to consolidate our already blossoming friendship for the mutual benefit of our sister countries and to our people,” he said.
Barnabas Nawangwe, vice chancellor of Makerere University, said China is a country that does not want to develop alone; it wants all communities to have mutual benefit.
“They are giving us that opportunity without strings attached,” he said. “We must be grateful to the Chinese people.”
Nawangwe said the scholarships provide an opportunity to students who would have instead dropped out of university because they cannot pay fees.
He said every year over 1,000 students have to discontinue their studies for this reason.
