| Fizah HAB |
AS PART of its mission to provide education to underprivileged students, the Brunei Council on Social Welfare (MKM) yesterday presented scholarships to three students at the Rising Star Child Development School, Kg Rimba.
On hand to present school items and certificates of scholarship award at the ceremony were Pengiran Hajah Siti Hadizah binti PDP Pengiran Haji Apong, the owner of the school and Hajah Sharifah Rozlina binti Syed Elham, the school’s executive manager. They were assisted by MKM officers Nur Judy binti Abdullah, Vice-President 1 and Zubaidah binti DP Haji Abu Zar, children committee chairman.
The recipients of the scholarship award were Muhammad Ady Sha’arifin Erwany bin Seruny, Mohammad Sahrulariffen bin Sajali and Siti Nor Khadijah binti Zulkiflee. All are three years old and are in Kindergarten 1.
Nur Judy shared that the young children were chosen based on the income level of the parents and the number of children in the family.
Group photo of the recipients of the scholarship with their family members, staff members of the school and MKM officers. – FIZAH HAB
“One of the recipients has 15 brothers and sisters and the family belongs to the low income bracket. Normally the parents will wait until the child is six years old before they send the child to Year 1 in a government school.
“Kindergarten education is mostly provided by private schools in the country and you need to be financially able to pay for the tuition fee and other expenses in school. The formative years from age three to five are critical to a child’s development and most young underprivileged children do not have access to early childhood education as parents put priority to the elder children due to financial constraints.”
She added that providing a strong early educational foundation among the young underprivileged children will help them grow and develop into well-educated citizens living better lives.
The scholarship scheme is a programme offered by Rising Star Child Development School to needy families that are being assisted by MKM.
This scholarship is specific for pre-schoolers and covers the school year tuition fees from Kindergarten 1 to Kindergarten 3, school uniforms, books and stationeries.
The effort of Rising Star Child Development School and MKM in providing opportunities of preschool education to the young underprivileged children is in line with the first policy direction of the Ministry of Education (MoE) strategy which is to invest in early childhood education to help realise the country’s Vision 2035.
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