TESAS not a right, says Tagis

THE Tertiary Education Scholarships Assistance Scheme (TESAS) is a merit-based scholarship.
And it is not a right for all accepted tertiary students in the country, the director-general of the Office of Higher EducationDr William Tagis said.
He added that if the Government allocated more funding towards the higher education sector, then more tertiary students would be put on Government scholarship schemes.
However, under the current average K27 million budget allocation annually for tertiary scholarships, only 8,000 tertiary students out of more than 20,000 high-school aged students leaving high schools each year received Government scholarships.
Dr Tagis revealed this during last Monday evening’s National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) talk-back programme.
He said when TESAS was first introduced in February 2001, the new Government’s higher education scholarship scheme became one that students received on a one-year basis.
It also meant that students have to score high grade-point-averages (GPA) to qualify for the Government scholarship each year.
Failure to keep up their GPAs meant they would lose their scholarships.
He said this also meant that it effectively abolished the previous Government’s National Scholarship (Natschol) scheme which was granted to each student at the beginning of their entry into a higher education institution and lasted the duration of their specified course duration.
He said although by the new Government TESAS policy, students whose GPA spanned between 1.6 to 4 points were eligible; in reality only those between the GPAs of 2.6 and 4 points actually received the TESAS scholarship.
Dr Tagis added that as TESAS was a “user-pay” policy, all tertiary students; whether they received TESAS scholarship or are self-sponsored, would in one way or another pay some form of fees to the institutions they enrolled in.
Dr Tagis said: “If the Government allocated more funding to the Higher Education sector, more students would be eligible for scholarships.”