We should have a national database of scholarships
Muhammad Abd al-Hameed محمد عبد الحمید
We should have a national database of scholarships
Every year some students get several scholarships while many deserving ones cannot get even one. The problem lies in lack of coordination among organizations offering scholarships.
Suppose a student stands first in a Board or University examination. He qualifies for a scholarship from several organizations, which honor students that top an examination. Since an organization has no way of finding out whether the same student will be getting a scholarship from some other organization, the student succeeds in getting several scholarships, sometimes even from all of them. With coordination among them, a student may get only one scholarship, while other scholarships may go to other deserving students.
There is another problem. Most private organizations have no means to advertise their scholarships in newspapers. As a result, most students are never aware of available scholarships, even though they may qualify for them. Even government and semi-government organizations are unable to reach all students, who may qualify to get their scholarships.
In this age of Internet, both problems can be solved without any difficulty. Some national organization, say Higher Education Commission, may offer its services to all organization that give scholarships by setting up a national website for scholarships. Every university, secondary board, and government and private organization may provide to the website complete information about its scholarships, including qualifications, amount and duration of scholarships and other conditions. Students may submit applications directly to the organization so that it may decide award of scholarships to its satisfaction. After awarding scholarships, the institution or organization may provide full information to the national scholarship website.
If an organization wants to check whether a student already has a scholarship from some other organization, it may enter his name, roll number, name of examination, etc. in the Search window. The website will give the result of search immediately. If he already has a scholarship from some organization, he will not get another one. A class fellow, who finds out that a student was getting more than one scholarship, may report to the website as well as the relevant organizations.
The national website will give information about all scholarships available for education for all classes, both for studies here and abroad. Interested student will visit the website and see what they may get, depending on their qualifications. No scholarship will lapse only because students were not aware of it.
السلام علیکم و رحمۃ اللہ و برکاتہ!
