Indigenous Tertiary Scholarships to Help Students Stay in School
14 January 2019 at 5:59 pm
With Indigenous tertiary students more than twice as likely as their non-Indigenous counterparts to drop-out of university or TAFE after the first year, a raft of scholarships are up for grabs in a bid to keep students in school.
Despite the growing number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander further education enrolments, 44 per cent reported financial difficulty as the reason for dropping out after the first year of their course.
Community Sector Banking (CSB) CEO Andrew Cairns said this statistic was why CSB – in partnership with the Community Enterprise Foundation – was providing the scholarships, which are designed to help with the cost of course fees, accommodation and textbooks.
“For students to drop out of studying or leave apprenticeships due to financial hardship is a tragedy. We want to support Indigenous people to reach their study goals and set themselves on a path for a successful career,” Cairns said.
The scholarships have doubled in value from $30,000 in 2018, to $60,000 in 2019, with three of the scholarships valued at $10,000, and six at $5,000.
Cairns said the number of applications received last year was overwhelming.
“We were overwhelmed with the number of applications to our program last year, so we’re proud to be expanding both the value and number of scholarships available in 2019,” he said.
Applicants need to show how the scholarship would impact their lives, their involvement in their local community, and any need the scholarship would help them overcome, as well as provide evidence of their expenses at the end of each year.
Applications close on 29 January, and can be found here.
