Petronas awards scholarships to 213 students

PETRONAS today awarded scholarships to 213 deserving students to pursue their tertiary education under its PETRONAS Education Sponsorship Programme (PESP). Under the programme, the recipients will be sponsored from the foundation level until their first degree in established local and foreign universities. Out of the 213 recipients, 100 were offered to pursue overseas programmes while the remaining 113 were offered to further their studies at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak. The scholarships were presented by PETRONAS Vice-President of Human Resource Management, Puan Raiha Azni Abdul Rahman in a ceremony held at UTP which was also attended by families of the students. The scholarships awarded today are part of a total of 400 scholarships offered by PETRONAS this year. Speaking at the event Raiha said PESP is part of PETRONAS continuous commitment in developing the nations human capital by providing educational opportunities to the deserving students to realise their academic potential. She added that PESP also aims to nurture a pool of capable personnel to meet PETRONAS' human resource and business growth requirements. The scholarship recipients were identified through a stringent selection process during PETRONAS YoungStars Day 2013 held in Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching from 13 to 16 April 2013. Apart from academic merit, PETRONAS also takes into account the candidates co-curriculum excellence, results of written and interview assessments as well as socio-economic background. Since its inception in 1975, PESP has benefited about 20,600 students nationwide. Apart from PESP, PETRONAS also carries out a community outreach initiative that assist underprivileged and borderline primary and secondary schoolchildren across Malaysia improve their overall academic achievement through Program Sentuhan Ilmu PETRONAS (PSIP).