Taiwan disbursing over 500 bursaries this week

A total of 524 bursaries will this week be dispersed to schools across mainland St Vincent as well as in the Grenadines from the Republic of China (Taiwan), and 2025 is expected to see an increase on this number.

School heads and students gathered at the SVG Community College (SVGCC) on Monday, December 2, for the first tranche of the 2024 Taiwanese Scholarship & Awards Ceremony disbursement to Kingstown and Windward schools. Of the 524 bursaries, 80 were distributed to students of the SVGCC on Monday.

Delivering the feature address at the ceremony, Ambassador of Taiwan to St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), Fiona Fan, explained that the bursaries this year total US$120,000.

She added that since the inception of the bursary programme in 1998, around 12,000 Vincentians have benefitted. Additionally, the Ambassador described the Taiwan scholarship programme as “another bridge” which improves the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

“For the past two decades, 291 students have benefited from the scholarship scheme who obtained their degrees in either Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD in Taiwanese universities in fields of agriculture, energy, tourism, business and so on. For next year, 2025, Taiwan will increase the scholarship quota to Vincentian students.”

Minister of Education, Curtis King, praised Taiwan for its contribution to the development of education in SVG for the last three and a half decades. He urged Vincentian students to follow the example laid down by Taiwan, who, when compared to other Asian countries, has a small population but has made a tremendous investment in educating and advancing their people.

“Even while we are small, we have the potential to do the same thing so we must never look at our size to hinder us from achieving great things.”

Also, the minister implored school leaders and teachers to find more creative means to keep the students engaged in learning, as well as instilling skills which can help them function in the world outside the classroom.

“There are some critical skills, some people call them transversal skills, some say soft skills. Now that information is so freely available, what we have to do is to teach our students to retrieve this information and analyse it and apply it to deal with whatever challenges they have. Let us encourage our students to go beyond just the rote learning.”

Today Tuesday, December 3, 2024 the disbursement of bursaries will continue for schools in the Leeward district, and the final tranche on Thursday, December 5, in Bequia for schools in the Grenadines.