PETRONAS Awards Scholarships to 353 Deserving Students Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (25 June 2011)
PETRONAS has awarded scholarships to 353 deserving students this year to pursue their foundation and undergraduate studies at established local and foreign universities through the PETRONAS Education Sponsorship Programme (PESP).
Of the 353 scholarship recipients, 128 students were awarded overseas programmes while the remaining 225 were offered Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS’ (UTP) programmes in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak.
The scholarships were presented today by PETRONAS’ Vice President of Human Resource Management, Puan Juniwati Rahmat Hussin, at a ceremony held in UTP. Another event was held on 20 June in Kota Kinabalu to present the scholarships to 13 deserving students from Sabah.
“We believe that human capital development, especially in the area of education and learning, plays a pivotal role in driving the country into becoming a developed nation. It is for this reason that the education sponsorship programme was established 36 years ago which reflects PETRONAS’ continuous effort and commitment towards the development of a progressive education and learning journey for the nation,” said Juniwati.
One of the recipients, Cik Hojita Itam, 18, an Orang Asli student from SMK Sultan Tajul Ariffin, Perak, will be pursuing an engineering course at UTP.
She expressed her happiness and gratitude for being given the opportunity to continue her education. “This scholarship will not only help ease my family's financial burden, but will also help me achieve my goals and dreams. I feel so proud and honoured to be selected for the scholarship and will do my best to fulfill all its expectations”.
A total of RM170 million has been allocated to finance the students until they complete their studies.
The PESP, which started in 1975, is a sponsorship programme to provide educational opportunities to deserving students to enable them to realise their academic potential and nurture a pool of capable personnel to meet PETRONAS’ manpower and business growth requirements.
The scholarships are awarded to qualified students based on merit via a stringent selection process. This takes into account the candidates’ academic and extra-curricular excellence, their performance during pre-qualification interview and written assessments as well as the socio-economic background of their families.
Since PESP’s inception, PETRONAS has awarded more than RM2.5 billion worth of scholarships to about 20,000 qualified Malaysians.
Also present at the event was UTP’s Vice Chancellor, Datuk Dr. Zainal Abidin Haji Kasim.
