QUICK GUIDE:
How Easily Win Our Grants
Good greetings, our beloved daughters and sons of Kaiama.
We have been receiving your applications for Financial Aid Grant and we have also been noticing some trends with your applications which have prompted us to put together this quick guide on how to improve your chances of being shortlisted for consideration and eventual award of the grants you apply for. We hope you will all take heed and do the needful.
Sound Byte:
As university students, your mindset and approach to doing things should be more serious, more polished, and more qualitative than just "the normal things".
The Problem: There are four key problem areas actually, namely:
- Many of you have not uploaded acceptable passport photos to your profile.
- Many of you fail to provide complete information to enable us verify your indegenship.
- Quite a significant number do not update their school records.
- And many of you fail to upload the required documents to vet your applications (or you upload wrong and unacceptable documents).
We shall be elaborating on the above and giving ample examples to help you make corrections.
Download PDF VersionFirst off, your passport photo
Your passport photo is not the same as your fancy social media profile photo. Many of you are yet to upload their photos, so we cannot verify your indigeneship if you do not show us your face. On the other hand, there are those who uploaded a photo, but the wrong kind of photo (some are full-length, others quarter or half-length). As you already probably know, passport photos are not supposed to be full-length, half-length or quarter-length! There is no need to show those who have uploaded the wrong kind of photos, but to guide you all, please look at the samples next page to show you what we consider as acceptable passport photos you can upload:
These are examples of what we expect reasonable passport photographs to look like.
Second thing, provide your complete information
Read that again: your complete information. And here we are talking especially about your contact address. When you log in to your Dashboard, there are options to update your biodata, contact details, school records and more. Clicking on “Update Your Contact” will open a screen similar to the screenshot below (assuming you are using a laptop or desktop computer. It will look a bit different if you are using your phone).
Updating your contact details.
Now, in the field labeled House Name/Ward at Kaiama, you are expected to type the name of your house and general area in Kaiama (or your village). So you could write something like “Farke House, Sabi Faandi” or “Ubandoma House Kaiama Ward 2” or “Mallam Mahmudu Dade House, Zedaleya” or “Late Chief Imam’s House, Sabo”. All of the above are real examples submitted by registered applicants and we accept those as reasonably okay.
But some of you submitted vague contact details like “Sabifandi Compound, Kaiama” or “Ward II” or “Kabaru” or “Koligizin” or “New Bussa Road Kaiama” all of which are just not good enough. I mean, Sabi faandi is large, and so is Ward II. How can I just go to Ward II or New Bussa Road or Kabaru and start looking for you if you do not include the name of your house like the other examples above?
Needless to say, some of you have not even bothered to update your contact details at all, so we do not know where to find you in Kaiama!
You could fill in the same information in the Permanent Home Address field as you filled in the House Name/Ward at Kaiama field or they could be different, depending on your peculiarities.
Bottom line is, you are strongly advised to do the needful about your contact details so that we can easily process your applications and award grants as they become available; otherwise we will always skip you when we see that your contact details are vague!
So, even if we have already confirmed your indegenship or you have been awarded one or more grants already, please revisit your Dashboard and check if your contact details need updating to match our recommendations as above. You may not be considered for future awards if your contact details are found to be missing or vague.
Next, update your school records
Your school records tell us what programme you are running in which Institution for which Academic Session and at what Level. Since our grants are generally tied to academic sessions and semesters, it means you cannot be considered for award if you have not updated your school records to include the session and semester advertised. If you update your records all the way from 100 Level to wherever you are now, it will be so easy for us to contact your Institution and formally request for verification of your studentship.
So, to update your school records, log in to your Dashboard and click the Update School Records link to open the window similar to the one shown below:
Updating your school records.
Please note that you must update your records to cover from 100 Level to date, so that you do not miss out anytime we decide verify all your enrollment records from inception to date instead of just the currently advertised session or semester.
And fourth, always upload correct documents to match your applications!
Each time you apply for a Grant, you will be required to upload certain school documents (which we then cross-check and verify from your school) before we may consider you for a possible award. Each application type requires you to upload different types of documents.
For example, those applying for NYSC MOBILIZATION SUPPORT GRANT will be required to present evidence of their graduation (either their original certificate or final statement of results) as well as NYSC call-up letter for the Service Year in question. A short video clip (30 - 60 secs) showing the applicant at his/her Orientation Camp or PPA might be required too. On the other hand, those applying for HANDOUT/LECTURE NOTES SUPPORT GRANT or ACADEMIC GRADE IMPROVEMENT SUPPORT GRANT will be required to provide evidence of payment of their school fees, evidence of their course registration as well as official statements of results.
So, whatever the documents required, please make sure that you:
- Upload sharp, clear (preferably coloured original) scan of your documents; and make sure the scanning is big, not so tiny that we cannot even read the print.
- Upload those that tally with the Session and Semester specified. So if the instruction says you should upload your evidence of payment of school fees for the 2021/2022 Academic Session, do not upload evidence of payment for your 2020/2021 school fees. Same applies to evidence of course registration and statements of results.
- Upload your own documents, not someone else’s documents. For example, do not edit and upload someone else’s course registration form just because you are running the same programme in the same institution and you are at the same level taking the same courses. It has happened before and those who did that were disqualified because that action was interpreted as an act of dishonesty, which we certainly do not wish to promote amongst our sons and daughters!
Now let us look at some documents uploaded by some of you and why they are good or bad. We shall start by looking at some evidence of fee payments you uploaded.
Remarks: This is not acceptable because it is just a screenshot which does not even contain any information about the payee, purpose of payment, amount paid and the name of the Institution amongst other vital pieces of information required for verification. Please avoid uploading unhelpful screenshots like this!
Remarks: Another screenshot that cannot be tendered as evidence of payment. There is no indication of what exactly is being paid for (Registration Fees? External Excursion Fees? Damages Fees? Hostel Accommodation Fees?). Please always upload real receipts and avoid uploading screenshots!
Remarks: This is another screenshot that robs the document of the seriousness required. Please avoid uploading screenshots altogether. Get the original receipt and upload instead!
Remarks: This fellow should have just uploaded the original Remita Receipt, which is always sent to payee’s e-mail address and they can download or re-print at any time.
For the avoidance of doubt, all individuals submitting evidence of payment of registration fees in connection with any Financial Aid Grant application should upload only original Remita Receipts. For those attending Institutions where other payment platforms are used for collection of fees, please upload only the original receipt sent to your email by the payment processor. This will make our task of verifying your claims easier; and will also eliminate your risk of not being considered for award of the grant applied for.
Remarks: This is the perfect example of registration fee payment evidence you should be uploading. It makes our verification process faster and improves your chances of being shortlisted for award of our Financial Aid Grants.
Next, we want to look at some documents uploaded by some of you as evidence of course registration:
Remarks: This is a big NO-NO! The name and logo of the Institution is not there and the display is just so poor with parts of the information truncated. And the scanning/snapshot is so dark, too. Please let us be serious with official matters at all times.
Remarks: Another big NO-NO! There is nowhere in the world where anyone would present this as their official university course registration form and they would be taken seriously!
Remarks: Name of Institution missing, logo chopped off, and form not signed!
Remarks: This one was so badly scanned it was effectively useless. Looks like a photocopy of a photocopy of another photocopy...
For the avoidance of doubt, all evidence of course registrations uploaded should be original course registration forms and where possible, should also be duly signed by an authorized university officer.
Remarks: These are better examples of course registration forms you should be uploading. It makes our verification process faster and improves your chances of being shortlisted for award of our Financial Aid Grants
Finally, we want to look at some semester results uploaded by some of you:
Remarks: We certainly need not mention that all of the above are, at best, laughable representations of official statements of results. There are more of such uploaded, but we need not show them all. You get the message…
And without us having to say it, the two samples below speak for themselves as credible statements of examination results from Universities. Even if in doubt, they would be so much easier to verify than the others shown above!
Final Words
In conclusion, we took the pains to prepare and put this guide here so that the students we so much care about and wish to help will understand that they too need to be also up and doing in order to be helped. As university students, your mindset and approach to doing things should be more serious, more polished, and more qualitative than just "the normal things".
When you are requested to submit a passport-size photograph, you do not need to be told what a proper passport-size photograph is. If you have to be told, then it either means you are not serious about it, or your qualifications that earned you a place to study in a university should be questioned. This may sound harsh, but this is the stark reality when you step out into the wider world. You must raise up to standards, because no one will lower their standards down to your level (and this is why some of us have decided to brace the odds and set up this initiative so that we may help prepare you properly to compete and win in the outside world).
Fact is, our people easily get schemed out of some state and national opportunities because we lack the discipline to do things properly. If you are applying for a job and you fail to fill in your contact details properly or you do not care to upload a respectable copy of your statement of results, certificates or other specified documents, do you think the recruiter(s) will take you serious even in the first round of screening?
So we are appealing once more to our sons and daughters to take a cue from this guide and always, always do things right not just on this platform but everywhere they go. If you do not want us to be scheming you out every time you apply for any of our financial aid grants, then please log in to your Dashboard now and seriously review your entries to make sure they align with the pieces of advice we have given in this post.
May we succeed as we strive to make our lives better at the individual and community levels, aameen. Luda wa to kone.
Best wishes from the Founders and Sponsors.