In Defence Of Chinese Bursaries

ALLOW me space in your newspaper to express my view and opinions about the Chinese scholarships.

I do not see any fault or whatever that the Namibians are complaining about the children of high-ranking government officials receiving Chinese scholarships. They deserved them of course. Are bursaries not awarded to top academic achievers? Do we have a law in Namibia stating that children of Ministers and Presidents must not apply for any bursaries or scholarships? Are you sure that Ministers can afford to pay their children’s tuition fees abroad or wherever? Don’t they have other relatives who will also need financial support from them? If the scholarships were awarded on the academic ability of these children, do you want these bursaries to be awarded to those who did not do well in school? If the kids passed well in grade 12 let them get their scholarships, they have been committed in their schoolwork and therefore deserve to get ahead with their vision. The Ministry was not aware whether they were the daughters, sons, cousins or relatives of ministers. What they were interested in was to give scholarships to those who obtained high points.None of you have seen somewhere in the advertisement that relatives, daughters, sons etc of ministers must not apply. Let us unite and build our nation instead of complaining about issues which are fair.Alina GustavVia e-mailNote: You’re entitled to your views but you may have missed the point. The controversy is not about the Education Ministry bursary allocations, but about scholarships given outside the ambit of this Ministry, and some of the recipients did not get good grades at all, so merit could not have been the reason for these awards. – Ed