Scholarship to help South’s future super-sleuths achieve their dreams

Two students from South High have $20,000 each to help them achieve their future goals, which for both of them may help crack the crimes of the future

South Grafton year 10 student Caitlin Eggins, and year 9 student Sharlee Cook are all smiles about being chosen for the $20,000 Harding Miller Education Foundation Scholarship. Photo: Adam Hourigan

South Grafton students Caitlin Eggins and Sharlee Cook are both keen to solve crimes with a career in forensics after university.

And it looks like they’ve cracked the case of how to get there, with both receiving a $20,000 scholarship through the Harding Miller Education Foundation.

The scholarship is awarded over four years, and is given to public school students who demonstrate high academic potential and are experience challenging socio-economic circumstances.

For the students, it means the money is allocated towards tutoring, laptops and high-speed internet and other academic resources.

For Caitlin, who is in the second year of the scholarship, having the new laptop and internet through homeschooling last year was a godsend.

“It made it a lot easier, and having the internet to be able to do everything,” she said.

“It’s been really helpful, at home we had lots of people running off one old laptop which was really slow,” Sharlee said. “So it’s made it really easy to be able to get my work done.”

Sharlee said she was jumping all around the room when the phone call came through of her success, but she had to decipher a clue first.

“The foundation rang my mum’s phone, and I had to wake her up to answer it, and she’s listening to the call and asked me ‘Who’s the Harding Miller Education Foundation?’ and I started screaming it was the scholarship,” she laughed.

Caitlin said she was having tutoring online for an hour a week, and it allowed her to really focus on school and enabled me to reach my potential.

“The $20,000 is an amazing amount of money, but it’s more about what things like the laptop and tutoring and what it can do,” she said.

Applications for the 2022 scholarship are open to students now in Year 8, and close on September 15.

For more information, follow the link to www.hardingmillereducationfoundation.org.au/apply-for-a-scholarship, or contact head teacher of well being Sarah Dewberry at South Grafton High for application support.