UAE telecom service provider Du and American University of Sharjah launch Dh5m scholarship
It is aimed at Emirati students that are unable to finance their university education
Dubai: UAE telecom service provider Du has partnered with the American University of Sharjah (AUS) to launch a Dh5 million student scholarship.
The financial endowment, announced on Monday at a press conference, will run over five years. It is targeted at high achieving Emirati students who are unable to finance their undergraduate university education.
“We believe that education is the best investment one can make,” said Othman Sultan, CEO of Du.
“This is not the first of these partnerships, but this is one of the substantial ones that we are doing,” he added.
The university will pick the students they view as deserving, based on their academic performance, and the decision is then left to Du, according to Sultan.
Thomas J. Hochstettler, acting chancellor at AUS, said that the university will invest the funds for the benefit of its students.
“Because it’s an endowment, we invest those funds, and so we spend the income from those investments. Depending on how the markets perform, that will be about Dh200,000 a year. We can give those either to students as tuition — full tuition is Dh80,000 a year. Typically, we don’t give them more than 50 per cent. In very bad hardship cases we do give them more,” he said.
Meanwhile, the scholarship is aimed at supporting Emiratisation. “We all know that Emiratisation is a fundamental responsibility, specifically for companies like us, where the various governments are the major shareholders of our company,” Sultan said.
Sultan added that Du welcomes graduates of AUS and other universities to undergo a graduate trainee programme for Emiratis at the company. Once the programme ends, Du may offer them jobs, based on their performance, according to Sultan.
