The mayor of the Makhado Municipality, Cllr Glory Tsakani Mashaba, re-affirmed her council’s commitment last Thursday to assisting students from the historically disadvantaged communities who were faced with the prospect of abandoning their studies due to financial constraints.

The municipality launched its bursary scheme, aimed at promoting interests in fields such as information technology, property valuation or real estate, civil and electrical engineering during a ceremony at the council chambers. The bursary scheme was initiated by Mr Sarel Rhulani Nkuzana when he was still the mayor of the municipality.

Since the bursary scheme was established, the municipality has been putting aside an amount of R300 000 every financial year, with each of the successful bursary recipients receiving R15 000 each.

In an effort to build on the foundation laid by Nkuzana of producing a pool of engineers and information technologists in the five years since the launching of the bursary, Mashaba said that, due to the cost of living which is very high and the annual increase of tuition fees at tertiary level, the municipality might increase its annual bursary amount of R15 000 to R20 000 per student in the next academic years.

"The students requested us to increase the annual bursary amount, because it can no longer cover their tuition fees, but we are still going to deliberate about this issue at the council meeting," she said. Mashaba, however, is worried about the low number of learners from other regions of her municipality such as Vuwani and Waterval, where she comes from. She said that it is high time for students in those regions to begin applying for the municipal bursary scheme through their schools.