31 Jul 2006

Call for more scholarships to be awarded in Vanuatu

5:44 pm on 31 July 2006

The Vanuatu government is being called on to increase the numbers of scholarships awarded to ni-Vanuatu annually.

The Daily Post reports that the call came from the National Training and Scholarship Office, after it received a record number of applications for scholarships this year.

The Principal Scholarships officer, Amos Tatangis, says there were a total of 579 applications, far higher than the 400 in the previous year.

The increase is thought to be due to a higher number of students in years 13 and 14 plus people re-applying from previous years.

Mr Tatangis says the total number of awards for this year is about 80 which hasn't changed much over the years.

He says they can do nothing about the higher numbers applying but they might better address the issue if the government increased the number of awards proportionately to the rate of the population increase.