For the first time, a Tertiary Scholarships and Loans Services Principals and Careers Teachers Workshop was held to raise awareness about online applications for study loans and scholarships for students.

Speaking at the event in Suva today, TSLS Chief Executive Doctor Hasmukh Lal says these sessions were much needed, as career teachers also play a crucial role in ensuring students make the right career choices.

“And these students look up to them in terms of providing them with the right career advice. So that’s why we thought instead of just educating the students this year, we take a better approach whereby the students will get a digital copy of the scholarship in the study loan schemes, while the teachers will guide them in terms of how they apply online in terms of the program that they want to study next year in the higher education institutions.”

Permanent Secretary for Education, Doctor Anjeela Jokhan, has acknowledged the TSLS’s approach to disseminating the correct information on scholarships and loans available for the 2023 academic year.

She adds that in the past nine years, $1.4 billion has been invested in these schemes, and such sessions have mutual benefits.

“The TSLS program is a crucial component of the government’s initiative to ensure that no one is left behind when it comes to education. And it is a message to every Fijian that they can travel as far their life as they tell us can carry them, free from any restrictions based on ethnicity, religion, background, financial limitations, and so on.”

TSLS will conduct three of these workshops, two of which will be in the western division tomorrow while another will be held in the northern division.

Meanwhile, 9200 scholarships and study loans are up for grabs for 2023, and applications will open on the 1st of next month.