Seven Northern Territory schools will be part of a $400,000 scholarship scheme being rolled out by Charles Darwin University.
The CDU-School Scholarship Scheme will offer about 100 scholarships over five years to encourage high-achieving high school students to complete their schooling and to enrol at university.
CDU Vice-Chancellor Professor Barney Glover said the university would introduce the scholarships in a staged way between 2011 and 2015.
“These scholarships have been designed to foster and maintain excellence in the Territory’s secondary students and encourage young people from diverse backgrounds to take part in university education,” Professor Glover said.
“The Territory has talented young people from enormously diverse backgrounds who we want to encourage to attend university. We know that by alleviating some of the financial burden associated with studying, students can concentrate on what really matters.”
Each scholarship would be available for up to four years and valued at $1000 a year. The scholarships would be available to selected students to cover Years 10, 11 and 12 of school. If the scholarship holder then enrols in a higher education program at CDU, a fourth year of support would be provided for the first year of university study.
For 2011, a total of 20 scholarships will be allocated across the Centralian College, Casuarina College, Darwin High School, Kormilda College, Katherine High School, Maningrida School and Nhulunbuy High School.
CDU will hold discussions with NT high schools that did not receive scholarships in the initial allocation to be able to join the program in 2012.
Professor Glover said a second component of the scholarship scheme would be a single year, $1000 scholarship for Year 12 students. He said CDU would introduce in a staged way about 100 Year 12 scholarships over the period 2011 – 2017.
Both schemes would require the scholarship holder to engage with CDU while they held their scholarship, which could include attending some classes, laboratories or other learning experiences at the university and engaging in mentoring arrangements with CDU staff or students.
The university was keen to encourage some of the scholarships to be taken up by students studying in the health sciences/sciences and a number of the scholarships would be offered jointly by CDU and the Menzies School of Health Research, Professor Glover said.