African Scholarships Program – 2019 Report

The International Open University (IOU) endeavours to strengthen the capabilities of African youth through the provision of quality higher education. Earning a university degree, helps disadvantaged students create a beneficial livelihood for themselves and in turn others, as well as empowering them adequately to work towards the eradication of poverty in their communities.

In 2017, IOU launched the African scholarship project with the aim of educating one million African students by 2020. Perhaps it was over-ambitious for us to think that we could reach this honorable goal in such a short period of time given the enormity of the undertaking. Yet we hope that with the help of Allah and the continuous support of generous donors, we can accomplish this goal by 2030, In shaa Allah.

Alhamdulillah, we collected approximately US$ 998,000 over the last two years from various crowdfunding campaigns, donations on this website, and local donations. However a portion of it had to be allotted for advertising costs, marketing consultancy fees, and payment processing fees. After deducting the above mentioned expenditures we were left with approximately US$ 793,000 as working capital for the project.

Over the last two years, we’ve granted scholarships to 788 students in 12 African countries. Below are the numbers of new students enrolled in each of the four semesters since the project was launched, as well as their countries and genders.

New Scholarships per Semester

Scholarships per Country

Note: Jamaica being an African diaspora country, it has also benefitted from this project.

Learning Centers

Through our operations, we have discovered that disadvantaged African students cannot afford computers or internet connections and in many areas even access to stable electricity is a challenge. To enable these scholarship students to study, IOU has set up learning centers in several countries by renting premises or partnering with existing Islamic organisations. For learning centers that IOU has setup, it has equipped them with computers, desks, chairs, generators, etc. and students not only get to study the degree program free of cost, but they also get to use the facilities at these centers totally free of charge. Below is a list of centers that IOU has setup or partnered with.

Learning Centers Fully or Partially Funded

Learning Centers Self Funded

Scholarship Costs

When the African Scholarships initiative was first launched, it was estimated that the cost of one scholarship would be US$ 560 per student for the entire four year degree of eight semesters. This was based on our sliding scale fee structure for students in Africa. However, faced with the additional support that IOU had to provide in terms of setting up learning centers and their maintenance, the actual cost of one scholarship became higher.

Funds Utilization

Expected New Student Intake

Conclusion

We would like to thank all of the donors and partners that assisted us in making it this far to change the lives of our scholarship students. You remain in our duas and those of the students who have benefitted from this program. We pray that Allah accepts your donation as a sadaqah jaariyah (continuing charity). We also hope that you will assist us in continuing this honourable goal for the coming years, as we expect to double the number of scholarship students over the next year. Please view the videos and photos below to see the impact that YOU have made! For more information, please contact us at scholarship@iou.edu.gm.

Videos