The Chinese Government awarded scholarships to 25 Tongan students at the Chinese Embassy, Nuku’alofa yesterday, 4 August.

The China Scholarships Council offered eight Post Graduate and 17 under graduate scholarships. The council has been offering scholarship opportunities for Tongans to study in China after the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1998.

Lord Tu’ivakano, the Speaker of the Tongan parliament who spoke at the scholarship awards ceremony said that between 1999 and 2005, the number of Tongan students who were granted scholarship opportunities to study in China averaged out to about two to three per annum, but since 2006 the figure had jumped, and to date 150 Tongan students have been awarded scholarships to study in China.

When President Xi of the People’s Republic of China visited Fiji last year, he told Pacific Islands leaders in Nadi that during the next five years China will be offering 2000 scholarships and 5000 training opportunities to Pacific islands countries.

Lord Tu’ivakano and the Chinese Ambassador to Tonga HE Huang Huaguang presented scholarship certificates to the successful candidates.

Mr Claude Tupou, the Acting Director for the Ministry of Education and Training thanked to the Chinese government and said that 700 students applied for government scholarships this year, but the ministry could only provide for 10% of this demand.

He did not elaborate more but it was clear that Tonga is faced with a growing unskilled and unemployed population of school leavers.

Tonga’s former Ambassador to China, Hon Siamelie Latu and his wife, and a returned PhD graduate, Ms Kilisitina Puleiku  told the students not to get involved in playing rugby in China, but to concentrate on their studies. He said that all students who got involved in playing rugby had failed miserably in their studies.

Mrs Latu reflected on a concern of many Tongan students that only a year to study the Chinese language, before they begin their study was too short. They were pleading for the duration of the Chinese language study to be extended to two years. The request has been rejected, and one of the main reasons was because a number of students did not have any problems, they learned to understand Chinese in one year, and carried out their studies in Chinese.

The 25 students will leave for China next month.