Sharjah Ruler grants scholarship to student after mother’s live radio appeal

Sharjah: A mother who called a live radio programme seeking help for her daughter’s university education was told, before she could finish explaining her predicament, that the Ruler of Sharjah had already intervened.

His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, directed that the student be granted a scholarship at the University of Sharjah to cover the remaining year and a half of her studies, according to a report in Al Khaleej. 

The intervention came during an episode of Direct Line, the Sharjah Radio and Television programme hosted by Mohammed Khalaf, Director-General of the Sharjah Broadcasting Authority.

The caller, identified as “Umm Maryam”, said she was an Emirati married to a Kuwaiti man and that their daughter had been studying at the University of Sharjah under an educational sponsorship arrangement.

According to the mother’s account, the sponsorship ended after her husband’s citizenship was withdrawn, raising the prospect that their daughter would be unable to complete her degree. 

She had barely begun laying out the problem when Khalaf interrupted with the news that Sheikh Sultan, who had been listening to the programme, had already issued a directive to provide the student with a University of Sharjah scholarship for the remaining 18 months of her studies.