Scholarships are a privilege, not a right

I WANT to comment on Dr Kemung’s article published last week (The National, Jan 6) titled, “Rich but poor, Morobe needs HR development”.
I agree with him because I am from a remote area of Morobe and I believe the majority of people do not access many services.
The province has many natural resources, industries such as mining, factories and manufacturing plants.
But human development is still lacking in the province compared to other provinces. His article mentioned something about the Gerson Solulu scholarship.
This scheme was the initiative of the former governor Luther Wenge.
The budget cut from K5 million to K4m is reasonable.
This means that only Morobeans  who meet the set selection requirements will be eligible to benefit from this money.
A student who wishes to be sponsored by the Morobe provincial government must be performing well in his or her studies and provide documented proof.
The K4m budget should have targets in place. The committee should have set quotas for each tertiary institution and projections on how much will be spent on each scholar from the balance of K4m.
This could mean that the amount will be given to students who meet the GPA set by the scholarship committee.
This scholarship is not a right, it is a privilege.
This privilege will only be given to those who are committed in their studies and are doing their best.
We cannot increase the budget to K10m as suggested by the author.
Morobe is a big province and we need more money for development and service delivery.
The K4m budget is probably sufficient to cater for the spaces available.
I was one of the recipients of the scholarship and I would be pleased to hear if the scholarship is granted to a student with good GPA.
I want to challenge my fellow countrymen and women to think seriously and don’t take the scholarship for granted.

Sky Bobeng
NCD