22-year-old Thanks Opening
A22-year-old student expressed his appreciation to the Tertiary Education and Loans Board (TSLB) for the Tertiary Education Loans Scheme (TELS) to complete his undergraduate programme. Shamal Narayan of Wailevu, Labasa, the eldest of two siblings, with the help of the TELS scheme for the last three years completed his Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Information System from the University of the South Pacific. He will be graduating on March 23. Before TELS, the multi ethnic scholarship was in place which was awarded to students with who were not from an iTaukei family. If one student from a family was awarded the MultiEthnic Scholarship; the second sibling was not eligible for the scholarship.
Mr Narayan is currently working as an internal auditor at Williams and Gosling Limited said that the TELS scholarship helped many Fijians to complete their tertiary education despite their racial or financial backgrounds.
He was the first in his family to study through the loans scheme for three years. He completed his Year 13 from Labasa College in 2013.
“The scheme is a great initiative for the parents who cannot afford to pay for their children’s university tuition fees,” he said. “We also learn to manage our expenses that we get through the allowances given to us. “The loan scheme helped financially to pay for my academic fees and be a full time student. “It helped me to pay for my tuitions and allowances for my other academic expenses.
“Previously the scholarships were available for students to apply for with a certain mark criteria where most of the students did not get accepted; now through the loans scheme programme, many of the students can apply and join the universities straight after high school. “Before, some students could not complete their tertiary education due to financial difficulties but now families who cannot afford to pay for the tuition fees can apply for the loans scheme and continue with their tertiary educations.
“The loans scheme provides opportunities for all pursuing students to build their career better.”
Edited by Rusiate Mataika