Gunnedah Community Scholarship Fund recipients use opportunity to grow in ECEC

Zara Bartlett has been named as a recipient of a grant from the Gunnedah Community Scholarship Fund, which she will use to pursue a Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood in Sydney.

Ms Bartlett aspires to one day manage an early learning service, or even own and run an early learning business herself.

She was one of a number of recipients recently announced as the latest to secure funding through the grants program, with 2025 seeing the introduction of the Pamela Helen Rickard Scholarship. 

The new scholarship honours the late Pamela Helen Rickard, who was the Dux of Gunnedah High School in 1969.

Pamela attended the Australian National University from 1970 to 1972, undertaking a combined Asian Studies/Economics degree and was a prize-winner in Economic History.

The scholarship is awarded to Gunnedah students also attending the Canberra-based university, with Clare Canham being named the first winner. 

Miss Canham will study a Bachelor of Political Science, having had her interest in political science piqued in her final years of high school, where she was highly successful on the regional public speaking circuit.

Moving forward she is particularly interested to pursue the foreign affairs and international relations component of her study in the hope of one day reaching the top as minister for foreign affairs.

As a side interest, she is also planning to take some classes on Indigenous studies and follow in the footsteps of her aunt who specialises in Indigenous health.

Other recipients of the grants will pursue a Bachelor of Rural Science, a Diploma of Engineering, a Bachelor of Human Movement and a Bachelor of Education K-12.

Learn more about the scholarship program here. For the local and original coverage of this story please see here.