You might have heard of initiatives that aim to assist students with tuition, perhaps you’ve heard of HECS. In Bali, financial assistance has moved past merely using money to aid students.
A tourism academy has offered its students with the opportunity to pay their tuition in the form of coconuts.
Students at Venus One Tourism Academy had been struggling to make ends meet during the global COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the founder devised a coconut tuition plan. Aside from offering tourism courses, the academy also has the side hustle of producing virgin coconut oil. By paying coconut tuition, the students are able to pay their student fees while aiding in the production process of the virgin coconut oil.
The academy is also accepting mongria leaves and gota kola leaves alongside coconuts, which are used to create a herbal soap that they also produce. Each coconut received by the academy is valued at market price and this market price is then considered as the tuition that they once owed the school.
This initiative is not only helping financially struggling students with university fees, but also tapping into their entrepreneurship skills as students have the opportunity to resell the products that they create
At the beginning of the pandemic, Venus One Tourism Academy offered an installment plan for tuition but as the pandemic continues to progress, they have been allowing students to simply pay whatever they can. This also applies to those who are paying by coconuts.
With the Bali economy taking a big hit from the COVID-19 pandemic due to their nature as a top tourist destination, those in the Bali tourism industry are desperate for borders to reopen.
Photo credit Shutterstock
Bio: Stephanie is a first-generation Chinese-Australian from Hong Kong. She is in her final year of completing a Bachelor of Communications in Public Relations and Journalism at the University of Technology Sydney.
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