Last year, we announced details of a new team which will lead on developing our current scholarship programme.
As part our Education Pathways theme, this new Development Team is working with the Scholarship Delivery Team for a fixed term of two years to help shape the programme's future.
Potential development work will include consideration of how we can broaden our bursary offerings across the wider post-16 education system. We will also be looking at new partnerships for non-financial support in line with our strategic priorities.
Launched in 1992, The Robertson Trust’s scholarship programme aims to improve access, retention and graduate outcomes for under-represented young people in higher education. Over 2000 young people have been supported in this time, while our bespoke self-development programme, Journey to Success, has given access to high quality internships, mentoring, training and wellbeing support.
As we develop the programme, and look for improvements, we are looking closely at our external evaluation which was carried out by the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen). The purpose of this evaluation was to build a fuller picture of how the programme is perceived by scholars and externally and to gain a stronger understanding of which elements contribute to the biggest changes.
In response to some of the key findings, developments over recent months include:
- Reviewing the nomination process, exploring how partnerships with new organisations can help to support schools, and support us, on encouraging nominations for students who would benefit the most from the programme.
- Working with external partners to identify students earlier in the learner journey that we could look to develop new forms of support for.
- Developing a new bursary for mature students, and potentially some articulating students, in collaborating with partners to understand barriers and needs.
- Consulting on bursary levels and payment schedules to better understand and address students’ cost of living challenges.
- Co-designing a scholar-led mental health support programme, including trauma-informed reflective learning sessions.
- Establishing a partnership-first model to provide non-financial support, so that we can spread good practice in supporting people across the student population.
The full evaluation is available to view here. The changes we’re putting into place reflect our commitment to continuous learning and improving across our work. While our Delivery Team continue to support current and new scholars, our Development Team will be working to produce recommendations to ensure we are maximising our impact in preventing and reducing poverty and trauma in Scotland. In addition to the evaluation findings, recommendations are being informed by extensive stakeholder engagement and discovery work, as well as insights from the Delivery Team.
We will be sharing regular updates across our communication channels, so would encourage all those interested to follow our social channels and mailing list. In the meantime, you can connect with our Scholarship Team using the details below:
- Scholarship Delivery Manager: Annie Doyle (doyle@therobertsontrust.org.uk) LinkedIn
- Scholarship Development Manager: DonnaMarie Steel (donnamarie.steel@therobertsontrust.org.uk) LinkedIn