Africa-Press – Malawi. The newly launched Prophet Shepherd Bushiri Bursary Scheme is on course, making steady and efficient progress in disbursing fees to selected learners in both secondary and tertiary education in the country.
In a statement made available to The Maravi Post signed by Bushiri’s Public Relations Officer Ephraim Nyondo says by the time the first phase of receiving the applications was closed on March 24, 2022, the foundation had received 7, 560 applications.
He says preliminary scrutiny of the applications showed that 2892 applications were from students outside Malawi while 425 were from those in postgraduate studies and 120 were from those applying for international scholarships.
To mean, 3, 437 applications were out rightly disqualified in the first phase of the applications. He says for international students, there is scheme targeting them and it will be announced eventually. Nyondo says the foundation, then, processed 4, 123 applications of which 489 were from secondary schools and 3634 were from tertiary institutions.
“Out of 489 secondary school applications, 240 applications were approved and verified with applicants, their parents/guardians and their head teachers. The banks have, so far, disbursed about 98 percent of the fees and the beneficiaries have already been communicated on the same.
“On the remaining 249 applications, 163 have been disqualified as they failed to meet the criteria.The foundation however, is still in the process of verifying the remaining 86 applications because most of these, provided details that are proving hard for the team to easily verify,” says Nyondo.
He adds, “The foundation has also processed 3, 634 applications from tertiary education and out of which 824 have been disqualified for failing to meet the stated criteria.
“The foundation has already sorted the remaining 2,810 eligible applications according to their colleges.”
Nyondo emphasizes that currently, the foundation is physically visiting various colleges to verify the vulnerability of the selected applications with respective registrars of the colleges.
He says it is the hope of the foundation that by end of July, 2022, all verified applicants in the first phase both in secondary and tertiary institutions will have their fees paid before the second phase which is slated for August, 2022,opens.
“It is our utmost conviction that in the stated space of two years, we will have reached the planned 5,000 students,” says Nyondo.
Meanwhile, Nyondo says the Foundation is assuring the general public that it is with stead and patience, working with various stakeholders to ensure that the bursary only goes to the deserved disadvantaged learners in the country.
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