The Tertiary Scholarship and Loans Services received nearly 200 more applications on day one since extending the registration deadline for applicants seeking financial support to fund their studies at the tertiary institution of their choice.
TSLS Acting CEO Dr Hasmukh Lal said as of close of initial deadline that ran for more than three months from 6 December 2021 ending on 20 March, 7528 students were registered via its online portal, some of whom were year 13 students waiting on the release of their Fiji Seventh Form Examination results.
At the closure of the deadline, three days after the release of Year 13 exam results on 17 March, Dr Lal said they received feedback that some students who had not registered wanted to sign up as well.
“So we had a consultation with the board and then we have extended the deadline to 27 March,” Dr Lal said.
Since revising the deadline yesterday, Dr Lal said the number of applicants registered has grown to 7680.
Dr Lal also clarified that the 27 March deadline is for those who have not registered and that it does not affect those applicants who have registered already. Registration, he says, does not mean that they have submitted their application, but rather it provides applicants with their login details to proceed with the application process proper.
“And once you’re fully registered, once you have the username and the password, then you can apply,” he said. “So when you apply, you choose your programs, the universities that you want to go to, and also the application can only be completed if you have uploaded year 13 and final offer letter [from the tertiary institution]. So once you have completed your application, then it goes for processing. So that’s the two-stage process that we have in our online system. So just to clear the confusion. We closed the application for the registration for new applicants and not for those who are registered to continue to upload their offer letters.”
All registered applicants have until 1 April to upload their final offer letters.
Provisional offer letters from tertiary institutions will not be accepted, Dr Lal said.
To expedite the processing time, TSLS staff have been working 16 hours a day every day, and will continue to do so until 1 April to review all applications, effectively reducing processing time from between six and eight weeks to three weeks at the most.
From 1 April, TSLS will start releasing sponsorship offer letters from their end to successful applicants, with it, bond form for NTS (Toppers) awardees, and loans agreement forms for TELS recipients. Successful applicants are then given a 7-day window to fill in and submit the bond and/or loan forms after which TSLS will release a confirmation letter affirming their financial backing.
“When we send the offer we send the bond form for the NTS students (Toppers) and for the TELS student we send the loan agreement. So these two documents are sent when it processed. And the students have got seven days maximum of seven days to actually complete filling the documents and then upload. The final confirmation from TSLS will go to the students on the seventh of April that yes, we confirm you to study at this particular institution starting from this semester.”
