BY KWANELE TSABEDZE
MBABANE – The government has resolved to extend tertiary education scholarships to 1000 more students.
This was revealed by the Minister of Labour and Social Security Phila Buthelezi when speaking in the Ministry’s offices today. Buthelezi’s announcement comes after there was a pleasing response from the student community in Eswatini that Government should consider extending scholarships to more qualifying students.
“This addition of 1000 students does not mean that more students will be asked to apply, but rather those who had already been interviewed in consideration for the scholarships will be considered,” said Minister Buthelezi.
“We had also said when admitting the initial 2500 students, that there will be no room for appeals, and we still stand by that. We know that most students will hear this announcement of extending scholarships to 1000 more students and rush to our offices to make appeals, there is no room for appeals. We cannot consider them because we are working based on our budgetary limitations,” added the Minister.
The Minister added that what is going to happen is that the 1000 students will be selected from those who have already been ranked following their interviews with the scholarship board.
“We will go back to the report from the interviews, and select those who were the next best in line to benefit, for all the institutions,” clarified the Minister.
Buthelezi also confirmed that those who will be selected as part of the 1000 scholarship beneficiaries will receive a phone call by the end of the business day on Friday, 3 March 2023. This additional number of beneficiaries brings the total number of scholarship beneficiaries to 3500 for the academic year of 2023-2024.
