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National | Education

$100k of scholarships to help Māori students study abroad

Five Māori students will receive $20,000 and the opportunity to study abroad with a new scholarship up for grabs.

Introduced last year by Crimson Education, Te Ara a Kupe Beaton Scholarship is the first to support Māori students to gain admission into top universities in Aotearoa and abroad, whether it be computer science at Victoria University, medical school at the University of Auckland or economics at Harvard.

Student Lily Holder-McFlinn was awarded one of last year's scholarships and was accepted into a conjoint Law and Computer Science degree at Victoria University.

"The Te Ara a Kupe Beaton scholarship has provided me with the resources and knowledge to achieve goals I previously believed to be impossible.  The team gave me the opportunity to engage with talented people from around the world, which has provided me with connections that will be essential in my future career path,” she says.

2017 scholarship winners. Source: Crimson Education

Since winning the scholarship, Lily has received four NZQA subject scholarships, a $5,000 Victoria Academic Excellence scholarship, and a $15,000 Spark scholarship for women in technology.

This year she is on the judging panel alongside 10 others including Shay Wright, the co-founder of Te Whare Hukahuka, an organisation that helps rebuild local Māori economies through education and training, as well as co-founders of Crimson Education Jamie Beaton and Sharndre Kushor.

Beaton says not only does the scholarship open up doors for young Māori, it helps to introduce the world to Māori culture.

"Historically, top-ranked, competitive universities have had very little representation of Māori students and that's something we'd like to change.”

The scholarship is named after the warrior Kupe, who voyaged the Polynesian seas to discover Aotearoa, just as Crimson encourages students to go on a journey of discovery, push boundaries and adventure beyond the familiar.

Applications close on August 20 and the winners will be awarded on September 16 during Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.