Sintra approves scholarship regulations for students at the top

A autarquia sintrense today approved the regulation of scholarships for students in higher education, “Sintra Estudo +”, intended for residents in the municipality, enrolled in public, private or cooperative schools.

According to a proposal from the mayor, Marco Almeida (PSD), the executive decided, by majority, with abstention of the PS, to submit to the Municipal Assembly the draft Regulation of Assignment of Scholarships to Students of Higher Education Residents in the Sintra Council – “Sintra Estudo +”.

The proposal for a regulation, to which Lusa had access, is intended for the award of scholarships to “students resident in the municipality who are enrolled and attending higher education” each school year, “according to the annual income of the household”.

The estimated value of the scholarship programme, according to the source of the municipality, in the first year will be “EUR 3 million”, which will be “revised each year”.

As for the stock exchange, it was not revealed, although the mayor admitted at a previous chamber meeting that the support could be in the order of EUR 1,500.

“ After the support for young high school students, this stage is now coming. Our university students also deserve every opportunity to be the pride of each syntrense family”, said Marco Almeida, in a statement sent to Lusa.

The scholarships, the regulation, cover students in courses of “graduate degree, with or without integrated master’s degree, and master’s degree”, enrolled “in public, private or cooperative higher education institutions, officially recognized by the Ministry of Education”.

The Regulation also covers “special public higher education institutions”, namely “military or police”, or “instituted by religious entities”.

For the purposes of awarding the grant, a student of up to 30 years of age who meets several conditions, such as having Portuguese nationality, permanent residence permit or authorization for studying in higher education, belonging to a household resident in the municipality or having tax domicile, shall be considered eligible.

The candidate will also have to integrate a household with “per capita gross annual income equal to or less than 25 times the indexing of existing social support (SIAs)”, not having another higher education degree of the same or higher level and being “a minimum of 60% of the total number of credits that form the curricular year” to attend.

After the first year of awarding the scholarship, the student has to “take proof of the achievement” and “all the delayed curricular units cannot make up more than 40% of the total number of credits of this curricular year”, although exceptions are admitted due to special situations.

The deadline for application, to be submitted between 15 September and 30 October of each year, shall be the first year from the entry into force of the Regulation and for 30 days.

The amount of the grant, in accordance with the regulation, is decided by the Board on the basis of its “budgetary availability”, being allocated for a period of 10 months, from October to July, in seven instalments.

The provision of false statements in the application process, “both for inaccuracy and omission”, leads to the cancellation of the grant and the authority, after considering the situation, may require the grantee or his education officer “the full and immediate refund of all the sums received”.

The municipal services, in the framework of Education, draw up an annual report on the implementation of the regulation, with “aggregated and anonymised data” on the number of applications and the average value of grants.

The councilors of the PS, in explanation of vote, justified the abstention, despite defending the measure, by pointing to the regulation “total financial uncertainty and budgetary opacity”, because although Marco Almeida stated at the meeting that the grant “will be progressive up to 1,500 euros [...], none of this is written in the proposal”.

The socialists also considered the “unrealistic exclusion ceilings”, for leaving out a couple with a child who earn more than 2,119 euros or a family of four people with 2,820 euros, considering that “the working middle-low class is ‘too rich’ for this social support”.

In addition, they criticize “age discrimination”, penalizing those who wish to return to university or professionally convert.

The regulation, after approval by the Sintra Municipal Assembly, comes into force five days after publication in the Diário da República.