Tata invests R2.3m in postgraduate scholarships for 2018/19 academic year

10 Apr 2019

53 students at four South African universities have been awarded with scholarships totalling more than R2.3m for the 2018/19 academic year as part of the Tata Postgraduate Scholarship Programme.

TATA International in Africa CEO Len Brand with scholarship recipients from the University of the Free State.

“We believe that businesses are powerful constituents of society,” says Len Brand, CEO of Tata International in Africa. “The Tata Group’s way of conducting business includes a commitment to support the communities in which we operate. Good corporate citizenship is a critical mission for Tata, one that is at the heart of who we are, how we think, and everything we do.”

“In Africa, our efforts to promote the social and economic development of local communities are focused on three main areas: education and skills development, entrepreneurship, and health initiatives.”

250 postgraduates assisted to date

Since the programme’s inception in 2006, Tata has sponsored over R10m in scholarships, assisting more than 250 young postgraduates to date.

Tata has partnered with Nelson Mandela University (NMU), University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and University of the Free State (UFS) to support postgraduate students who demonstrated academic competence and required financial assistance.

“Education is extremely empowering and transformative,” says Brand, himself a graduate of the University of Pretoria (Tuks), with a B.Sc in Industrial Engineering. “It has an amazing ripple effect, with the potential to not only uplift individuals, but the communities in which they live and work, and ultimately society at large.”

The scholarships are not faculty-specific and a wide range of candidates are supported across several academic fields, allowing the recipients to freely pursue their chosen specialisations. Scholarship recipients are not contractually bound to Tata once they complete their studies.