100 students up for scholarships at UWI Football Festival

Approximately one hundred sixth form students from all across Jamaica will have an opportunity to perform in front of a cohort of foreign scouts, in an attempt to secure scholarships to pursue tertiary level education.

The students are participating in the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus’ annual Scholarship Football Festival from January 3-5 at the Mona Bowl.

The candidates represent some of Jamaica’s most outstanding student athletes from the recent Dacosta and Manning Cup games that have been recommended by their schools for outstanding academic and sporting achievements.

The festival will see a series of scouting matches being played over the three day period and will feature an All Star Manning versus Dacosta Cup Match on the final day at 10.30am. The team selections for the game will be made from the top players over three days.

According to Director of Sports at the University of the West Indies, Dalton Myers, the initiative is part of UWI’s desire to create opportunities for high school students. “We wanted to provide an avenue for talented athletes to become a part of the UWI team on scholarship”, he says. “However, we are aware that we cannot accept every student who may want to attend the UWI and scholarships are limited, so we provided this path as an opportunity for students to be able to access scholarships abroad”, he ended.

The UWI, Mona Football Scholarship Festival is a part of the refocused sports development efforts at Mona. Five student athletes who participated in the first staging of the UWI, Mona Football Scholarship Festival were awarded Sports Scholarships to pursue undergraduate studies at Mona. This year the University of the West Indies, Sports Department will be targeting one hundred players to participate in the festival.

Over thirty (30) students have since been granted scholarships through this programme since its inception in January 2009.

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