At the moment I am busy looking at options for my PhD study and methods to support it… aka… scholarships.

Now I know that a few government departments have scholarships available and one of them is the Tertiary Education Commission Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarships.

So off I go to the page to take a look: http://www.tec.govt.nz/templates/standard.aspx?id=675

And what do I find?

As part of the Budget announcement made on 28 May 2009, the Government announced that the Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship scheme will be disestablished.

Say what?

Where is the commitment to educating the future. The government has made it clear they want to focus education on youth. How is applying for a PhD at 22 not youth? You can’t get through to that level much earlier.

Does the government now expect that each person pay their entire way through a PhD?

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

At least I have a few others to look at. And they are not all in this country either.