The Tertiary Scholarship and Loans Board (TSLB) has ex­tended the application dead­line for the 2020 national toppers scheme (NTS), tertiary, education loan scheme (TELS) and scholar­ship scheme to December 31, 2019.

Chief executive officer Bobby Ma­haraj said they had received 6125 online applications as of Decem­ber 20.

He said as of December 20 2019, 538 TELS applications have been processed.

“As of 20 December 2019, six NTS overseas and 187 NTS local schol­arship offers have been made to TSLB to the top ranked students nationally.”

Mr Maharaj said there were zero pending applications for 2020 as all applications had been processed.

He said the requirements for the 2020 applications were the same as the previous years, however, there were some changes in the eligibil­ity criteria.

Mr Maharaj said students com­pleting Foundation Studies would no longer be considered for NTS next year, but they could still apply and be eligible for TELS.

He said under the new policy, only students scoring 200 or above out of 400 will be eligible for TELS. Students who had to enroll for bridging courses via unclassified/undergraduate route would not be eligible for TELS.

“It’s important to note that stu­dents who do not get the passing mark in Year 13 can join any Tech­nical College of Fiji under TELS funding,” he said.

Edited by Ivamere Nataro

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