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Babauta OKs scholarship based on grades
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Posted on Oct 25 2004
Gov. Juan N. Babauta signed into law Friday a bill that aims to award scholarship grants only to students with the highest scholastic achievement.
Babauta signed Senate Bill 14-18, which also increased the number of recipients from Saipan from four to eight in consideration of students from two newly opened high schools.
The measure repeals and reenacts 3 CMC section 1341 to 1342 to set up the CNMI Honor Scholarship program.
Authored by Sen. Paul Manglona, the legislation provides stricter selection criteria for awarding all future scholarship to students with the highest overall scholastic achievement on each senatorial district in the CNMI.
To receive the grant, the scholarship board will calculate the respective student’s cumulative grade point average and scholastic achievement test and or American college testing score.
Babauta said S.B. 14-18, which became Public Law 14-37, also clarifies the requirements for the three off-island high school scholarship recipients by specifically stating that their parents have to be bona fide residents of the CNMI for at least eight years.
Further, Babauta said the measure gives more authority to the scholarship board to enforce the terms of the scholarship agreement between the recipient and the CNMI government in the event that the recipient fails to maintain his or her grades.
“The administration fully supports this undertaking in order to ensure the continued provision of quality education of our students,” said the governor.
Scholarship board chair Roman C. Benavente said it is about time to award financial aid to students based on their academic abilities.
“Students should strive and get scholarship based on their ability,” he said.
Earlier, Benavente had also favored giving scholarship grants under the CNMI Educational Assistance Program only to low-income students.
“Even if you’re a child of a millionaire, if you meet certain requirements, you can get a scholarship grant,” he had said.
