The drive was introduced as a platform to communicate bursary, scholarship and career opportunities available to learners with limited access to information and from underprivileged/rural areas.

According to SANRAL Head of Marketing and Communication, Vusi Mona, their scholarships and bursaries pay for just about every need that a student may have.

“This would range from school fees, accommodation, extra curriculum activities, to counselling sessions should the need arise, as well as uniform,” he said.

He added that as of last year, SANRAL has expanded the fields of study, thus not limiting learners to mathematics and science only. It has been expanded to commercial subjects, and a general stream of subjects.

“We require the students to achieve and aggregate of 60% for them to qualify, and there has to be demonstration that the learner comes from a financially needy background,” he said.

Mona says that they are encouraging students to apply because they are aware that post Covid-19, a number of parents could have lost their jobs and may not be in a position to afford paying for their children, hence they had expanded the field of study, taking into account the financial situation of most parents in the country.

“We support students who want enroll at TVET colleges, Universities of Technology and Universities. Civil engineering was the emphasis in the past, understandably so, because SANRAL’s core business is engineering. We design and engineer roads, and in the past, we would focus on students who are following that stream. But last year we expanded the fields, to include among others, electrical engineering, human resources, environmental science and other related fields,” Mona added.

He further added those planning to pursue tertiary education have to achieve an overall aggregate of 70%, and those who are already at tertiary institutions have to achieve an aggregate of 60%.

He added that there had been many students who had achieved great things, who are top engineers at SANRAL, who had also been funded through scholarships and bursaries.

“I want to encourage students to not lose hope, there is always a possibility for them to qualify for the bursaries or scholarships, I want to encourage them to work hard so that there is merit for SANRAL to grant them the scholarship,” he said.

Visit SANRAL’s website to apply. The closing date for the bursaries are 30 September 2022.

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