CEF Scholarships Guide offers hope for ECEC professionals

Those aspiring to gain tertiary qualifications in early childhood education and care (ECEC) are sometimes challenged by the costs and challenges posed by living in a rural or regional location. 

To help overcome these barriers, the Country Education Foundation of Australia (CEF) have recently launched the CEF 2020 Scholarships Guide as a community education resource, highlighting ‘hundreds of thousands’ in scholarships now available for young students.

Nearly 1500 university scholarships are available on the digital resource, which aims to assist rural and regional Australians access scholarships, grants and bursaries.

Acting CEO Juliet Petersen noted the value of the guide in supporting rural and regionally based prospective students to access scholarship money, which, she said, is often “going begging”, something she said is “not acceptable when we know that country communities need support.”

The purpose-built online scholarship search platform includes an interactive personality quiz to assist with career choices, offers student voices answering questions such as ‘why apply?’, as well as giving tips and tricks for applying successfully.

“We hope the Scholarships Guide encourages a sense of aspiration in young students from rural and regional Australia. It’s a demanding time for higher education students right now. In this guide, we hope to remind them that there is support, there is hope and there is a spot at university” Ms Petersen said. 

Hannah Evers, a first year tertiary student, said the CEF scholarship support was an essential component for her to “even fathom” accepting an offer to study at the Charles Sturt University Wagga campus. 

“I’ve lived in Broken Hill my whole life, so at first moving to Wagga was really daunting,” Hannah said. 

“Coming from an outback area, I know a lot of people feel as though university or further study is too far out of reach or difficult to achieve. Despite how determined I was, I still felt as though accomplishing my goal would be much harder considering my circumstances.”

Ms Evers is in receipt of the $21,000 Andrew and Paula Liveris University Scholarship, which has “removed a lot of the financial burden, making it easier to devote more time to study, join clubs and play sport without being so heavily reliant on employment” she said. 

To access the guide, including the range of scholarships applicable to ECEC, please see here.