I did an online MBA, concentrating on international business. I wanted to do a master's degree for upward mobility. The Ministry (of Education) doesn't require you to have one, but it helps. A friend of mine, Kevin Anderson, had seen the application form in the newspaper for this particular scholarship. He also wanted to do a master's and said to me, 'We can do this together'.

I said, 'Okay, get me the form', and the rest is history really. I was accepted for the scholarship.

Almost fully. The scholarship was provided by the Ministry of Telecommunications, as it was an online course. I'm a physical education and health teacher and I'm a co-ordinator for information technology. It took me just over three years. The length of the course depends on how much time you have to devote to it and how much background you have in business. I had studied economics before, but I didn't have a business degree. So I had to study accounting and some other business courses before I could jump into master's-level work.

With a lot of help from my family and friends. I had a regular study schedule, which the school advised us to do anyway. Kevin Anderson and I arranged a schedule that would work for us both, so that we could study together.

My family gave me a great support in terms of the time they gave me. My niece, Monique Walker, and I worked together. She has a second job so I looked after her daughter when she was working and when I needed to study, she looked after my son.

My mother, Margaret Heyliger, was also around at weekends and helped out whenever I needed an extra few minutes to put towards a project. My sister, Angel Heyliger also helped out. I also have a regular baby-sitter, the daughter of a friend, and if I didn't want to burden the family, and I was ready to pay, then I would call on her.

Usually, Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, when Kevin and I studied together from just after the news to 10 or 11 p.m. Also I studied on Saturday nights. If I needed to do some reading I would often do it in the mornings when it was quiet.

I suppose it's normal to go through a stage of saying to yourself, 'Why am I doing this'? But mainly because of the camaraderie between Kevin and me, there wasn't ever even a question of quitting.

We were also looking at what we had to do next and whether we'd be doing the next course together. Some of Kevin's coursework was a bit different from mine and he actually got a little bit ahead of me, because he started doing two classes at a time before I tried it. Once he was able to do it, then I knew I could do it too.

There was never a question of how it was going to get done ? it was going to get done.

: Yes, I've known him since high school. He actually now works for the Ministry of Telecommunications, after graduating with his MBA. It's really gratifying. Especially now that I can actually spend more time with my son. That was the biggest drawback, having to give up some motherly hours.

But it was worth it. Because my son has seen me reading so often, he's gotten into the mind-set of working and reading and now he loves to read. That's been a great spin-off benefit.

It was actually much easier than we thought it was going to be. We were given a password to the web site. We had to go online, usually two or three times a week.

Sometimes you have to have a chat line open. In this way, we met other online students from different parts of the world, from Germany, Japan, or people who had travelled from the US and were working in other parts of the world. We discussed questions and other people's answers.

Because it was a world-wide course, there were obviously time differences. But I was always on in the evenings and if someone in Japan was on in the mornings, then we'd be on at the same time and could correspond that way.

You knew when most people would come on because they had regular schedules too. Some people did it in work hours.

: Definitely.

It was all done through Schiller International University. That's who we registered with. And all our text books were sent to us from Barnes & Noble. There were times when I couldn't get hold of the text book I needed, so the administrator would send me one from their library. We're like one big family, so they help us in every way they could. Yes, I went there in December. It was interesting to meet some of the professors there. I had met a couple of them before, because they have concentrated, week-long express terms. I did that twice.

I didn't have to do that, but I did it to speed up the process.

We had to pay for the transport ourselves, but the course itself was paid for by the Ministry, so it didn't cost us very much. Yes, it's definitely something mothers can do. I met someone else on the course, who was also a mother and she was doing really well.

The most important thing, I guess, is to be organised with your time. In fact, doing this has helped me to become more organised with everything.

I'm definitely taking it easy. The Ministry was offering another course I was interested in, but I decided to give myself a bit of a break and spend more time with my son and concentrate on other things.

Yes. I did as many of the management classes as I could. For most of the time I was doing the course, I was deputy principal at the school, so management was very pertinent to what I was doing. In fact, it's still pertinent, because everything you do in a school is management. I used to play tennis, but I stopped just before I started doing my course. I don't do much of anything, except spend time with my son. Now I'm probably going to catch up on my shopping!