Expect changes to scholarship distribution for vocational and higher education once the Tertiary Scholarships and Loans Service (TSLS) fully develops its 10-year Human Capital Development Plan.
This, according to TSLS chief executive officer Hasmukh Lal.
He said the plan would identify gaps and areas which were the emerging skill-set sectors that required funding.
“If we have been funding a particular program for the last seven years and through this exercise we find that there is an oversupply, we need to divert the funding from the oversupply areas to the areas that are emerging now,” he said.
“In the last two budgets, Government has basically struck a balance between vocational education and higher education.
“Predominantly for the past seven years, most of the awards for scholarships and the Tertiary Education Loan Scheme (TELS) were going to degree programs and a few awards were for the vocational programs what we now call ‘skills qualification’ – the word Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has got a stigma attached to it and that’s why it’s now called that.”
Mr Lal said there was now equal distribution of awards for higher education and skills qualification programs.
“In terms of the advocacy, the Government has been focusing a lot on education about TVET – the significance of TVET for national development.
“This cannot be done alone by the Government we need all agencies – we need the Fiji Higher Education Commission, universities and employer organisations to educate the parents, students and school systems of the value of vocational education and how good employment opportunities come with it.”
He added that global trends showed a higher chance of a vocational education student becoming an entrepreneur rather than a degree program student.
“Based on the priorities of the government then, we will be distributing the scholarships and the study loans.”
