Know­ing her moth­er’s strug­gles as a sin­gle par­ent, Sha­nia Ram­sumair stud­ied from night in­to the wee hours of the morn­ing to en­sure she got top grades in the Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) so that her moth­er would not have to pay her uni­ver­si­ty fees.

While there were tears of joy yes­ter­day when the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion an­nounced schol­ar­ship win­ners, it was painful for Ram­sumair. The ex­cep­tion­al for­mer stu­dent of Laks­mi Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege, St Au­gus­tine got all Grade ones in four sub­ject ar­eas in 2020.  She got top marks in her pro­file grades for Caribbean Stud­ies, Chem­istry Unit 2, Physics Unit 2 and Pure Math­e­mat­ics Unit 2.

Her moth­er, Sabi­ta Ma­hase said that giv­en her daugh­ter’s suc­cess, they ex­pect­ed an open schol­ar­ship. Sha­nia even got two ac­cep­tance let­ters from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and McGill Uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da. With her dream to study at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, she en­rolled in a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence (BSc) in Track­One, Un­de­clared En­gi­neer­ing.

“I am go­ing to chal­lenge this. My daugh­ter even got an A-star in Cam­bridge chem­istry, which is the high­est grade some­one can get. She got ac­cept­ed in­to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. With the help of my fam­i­ly, we all chipped in and paid for the first se­mes­ter. We were con­vinced that she would get an open schol­ar­ship based on her qual­i­fi­ca­tions. She is now in the sec­ond se­mes­ter, and I do not know where I will go from here,” Ma­hase said.

It is hard be­ing a sin­gle moth­er, Ma­hase said. She was un­em­ployed for a long time and re­cent­ly found em­ploy­ment, but she does not earn enough to help her daugh­ter ful­fil her dream of be­com­ing an en­gi­neer. It is al­so too cost­ly to af­ford a lawyer to chal­lenge the schol­ar­ship choic­es, so she is ap­peal­ing to any­one will­ing to help. Most of all, she wants the Min­istry to re­view its se­lec­tion process. 

“This needs to be jus­ti­fied. It can­not be jus­tice.”

Dur­ing the an­nounce­ment of yes­ter­day’s schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ents, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by -Dol­ly an­nounced a re­duc­tion in schol­ar­ships from 400 to 100. The Min­istry in­tro­duced a Na­tion­al Bur­sary pro­gramme in which 600 suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants could ac­cess fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance for uni­ver­si­ty fees.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly told Guardian Me­dia that cur­rent­ly, Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ships are of­fered in 10 dif­fer­ent cog­nate groups to the top 10 per­form­ing stu­dents in each.

She said that in 2019, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 75 per cent of schol­ar­ships were award­ed in just three of the 10 cog­nate groups: Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Math­e­mat­ics and Busi­ness. The present arrange­ment al­lows high per­form­ing stu­dents in the oth­er sev­en cog­nate groups to be award­ed, rep­re­sent­ing a wider range of in­vest­ment by the gov­ern­ment in ar­eas crit­i­cal for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ship Pol­i­cy was re­vised and re­fo­cused in No­vem­ber 2020 to sup­port 600 stu­dents, with the in­tro­duc­tion of 500 Na­tion­al Bur­saries in ad­di­tion to the 100 Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ships; in­stead of the 400 stu­dents which ob­tained pre­vi­ous­ly when on­ly schol­ar­ships were of­fered.

“This re­fo­cus­ing al­lows the gov­ern­ment to sup­port more stu­dents with less fund­ing, as our re­duced fi­nances do not al­low the lev­el of fund­ing which was ex­pend­ed pre­vi­ous­ly.  The bur­sary process al­so al­lows the gov­ern­ment to in­vest fund­ing for train­ing in ar­eas that are on the na­tion­al de­vel­op­men­tal pri­or­i­ty list.  The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has been clear on the dif­fi­cul­ty of our fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, and even un­der these cir­cum­stances, more stu­dents are be­ing sup­port­ed than be­fore- 600 vs 400. The schol­ar­ship com­mit­tee of the MOE (Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion) award­ed 100 Na­tion­al Schol­ar­ships, 10 per cog­nate group, sole­ly based on mer­it, us­ing the merged, 2-year ag­gre­gate CAPE scores ob­tained from CXC,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

The Na­tion­al Bur­sary pro­gramme is avail­able for lo­cal or re­gion­al study. The Na­tion­al Bur­sary Pol­i­cy, along with FAQs and Guide­lines and Pro­ce­dures will be placed on the MOE’s web­site on Mon­day 15 March 2021, when ap­pli­ca­tions open.

Be­ing re­ject­ed af­ter hard work is dev­as­tat­ing, and Ma­hase said Ram­sumair has not been eat­ing or talk­ing to any­one in the fam­i­ly. It re­mind­ed her of when she sat the Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion. De­spite high marks, the Min­istry placed her in her fourth choice school. Ma­hase said she queried the place­ment, and the Min­istry even­tu­al­ly as­signed her to St Joseph’s Con­vent. By that time, Ram­sumair was al­ready in Laks­mi Girls.

“She locked her­self in her room. Not even I could get in at all. On­ly one of her friends she spoke to. She told her friend that while every­one was go­ing to fetes, she sac­ri­ficed. She used to go to bed at 6 o’clock in the morn­ing to get up at 7 o’clock to go to school.

“When she was done, she would go to lessons. She stud­ied hard just to get this open schol­ar­ship to go to Uni (Uni­ver­si­ty) be­cause she knew I could not af­ford it. Just so, they took away this dream from my child.”