Scholarship projects provide financial assistance to Australian students undertaking pre-school, primary, secondary, or tertiary study in Australia. Scholarships are awarded on merit or for reasons of equity, and are a great way to further the education of the next generation.
There are a couple of key legal requirements when considering setting up a Scholarship Project, and it's important that you take these into consideration before you apply:
Scholarship recipients must be Australian citizens or hold permanent residency
The scholarship must be open to a region of at least 200,000 people
Scholarships are for pre-school, primary, secondary or tertiary courses within Australia *
* Scholarships can be provided for study at an overseas educational institution, but the course must be a component of an Australian pre-school, primary, secondary or tertiary course.
You will also need to consider how you will determine which applicants receive the scholarship (I.e. what is your eligibility criteria, how will you interview applicants (phone, in person, Skype), who will be on the judging panel) and how you will advertise the scholarship to the wider public - keeping in mind that you will need to reach approximately 200,000 people.
You can use your local newsletter or church bulletin, post up an ad on Facebook or in the local paper, do a letter box drop - there are a number of ways you can meet this criteria.
Once you have shortlisted and interviewed applicants for the scholarship, you will need to send your recommendations to the QLG Board of Directors using this template. The QLG Board of Directors will assess your recommendations and award the scholarships accordingly.
An example of a Scholarship Project could be...
The Principal of St Paul's Primary School identified that, as the school is placed in a low socio-economic area with increasing rates of truancy and youth on the streets, there was an opportunity for the school – in partnership with their local church and wider community – to offer scholarships for students who were otherwise on the edges of society and at risk of falling behind in school due to dire financial circumstances. The school principal, pastor and local church elders met together to determine the scope, criteria and vision for the scholarships, deciding that the scholarships would cover 50% of the school fees for 5 eligible applicants.
The Principal completed an application to set up a scholarship under the QLG Scholarship Fund, so that all donations to the scholarship would be tax deductible. After the scholarship was approved by the QLG board, the school advertised the scholarship in their local newspaper, school newsletter, Facebook page, and sent a letter to all of the government assistance agencies in the area.
As applications for the scholarship came in, a small committee consisting of the principal, key curriculum leaders, the pastor and a member of the P&C met together to read through and assess each application. They conducted interviews with each applicant, and determined a shortlist of scholarship recipients to forward to the QLG board (including the reasoning behind their decisions).
The QLG board reviewed the committee's recommendations and approved all of the recipients. The school notified the successful applicants and, as donations continued to come in from the community for the scholarship fund, the school invoiced QLG each term for the students' fees.
Through these scholarships, a number of families in the community were able to connect with a welcoming, supportive community, and their children learnt about God and His incredible plan for their lives.