Repeal of lotteries hits scholarships
The government's repeal of the two- and three-digit lotteries has hit the Education Ministry's five scholarship programmes for poor and underprivileged children, a senior official said yesterday.
Wanderm Maneephokha, director of a centre to tackle problems of poor and underprivileged children, said he had submitted a request for funding to support five scholarship schemes via permanent secretary for Education Charuayporn Torranin. The centre wanted the government to use central budget funds to pay for the five scholarship programmes because a Cabinet resolution in November to repeal the lotteries had left the schemes with no money. The Government Lottery Office has told Wanderm there was no decision on what to do yet with money from the two- and three-digit lotteries. The affected schemes include 79,330 scholarships worth about Bt785.19 million for children of parents who had made an outstanding contribution to society in 2006; 69,972 "excellent composition" scholarships worth Bt395.8 million; 30,000 "Dream comes true" scholarships for disabled students, worth Bt397.4 million; 500,000 scholarships - worth Bt2.8 billion - to alleviate high living costs; and 5,413 scholarships worth Bt75.3 million for poor monks and novices. Many students selected for the scholarship programmes had been calling the centre and filing complaints to the ministry's Semarak Centre but were told that everything was on hold, an informed source at the ministry said.
|
