New scholarship policy will not apply to existing awardees
Once the newly revised Virgin Islands Scholarship Policy is passed before the House of Assembly, students who are currently on scholarships through the policy will not be impacted by the legislation.
Speaking yesterday on the Department of Information’s ‘Public Eye’ programme, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Dr Marcia Potter announced that current government scholarship holders will be held to the requirements from the previous revision of the policy done in 2012.
“The policy isn’t new, the policy has always existed in the ministry, and it has been revised several times over the years. The present one we are revising was last revised in 2012. We do have students who are out on that policy in 2012 and we have to hold those students to that policy and then phase them out as the new students coming in for scholarships now will go on the new scholarship policy,” Dr Potter explained.
Under the current scholarship programme, the continuation and length of the award for recipients are dependent on the student’s academic programme of study, or the time necessary to complete the required programme.
A student will be permitted to maintain a scholarship award only if their academic performance is maintained at an acceptable grade point average (GPA).
A GPA of 3.00 or above is mandatory for all award recipients.
For continuing students (students attending College/University before an award was granted), the award will cover the remaining academic years, but will not be applied to prior years of study before the award was granted.
A minimum of a 3.00 GPA and 15 credits are necessary for consideration.
The government will also still continue to pay up to $18,000 for students currently on the programme and not the $20,000 in the revised scholarship policy.
More funding will be available with revised scholarship policy
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What nonsense is this. If the money is increased. All should benefit as of the effective date of the increase.
18,000.00 is not enough students that are sent away on these scholarships are still struggling to come up with their half every semester especially in these times! No one have reach out to these students to make sure they are good or anything while the semester is going on! It is sad that you can’t add on that little 2k.
3.0 GPA is punishment. If a student have a mishap and fails one subject or get a C in one subject then they will loose their scholarship. If they get all B they are very close to loosing the scholarship. A 2.8 is a more realistic target which challenges the student but also gives them a chance if they run into a difficult subject for one reason or another. Lets face it, not all our student are going to be straight A students. So please get realistic.