By Ayanna Kirton, Staff reporterSCHOLARSHIPS VALUED at over $2 million were awarded to three students of the University of the West Indies' Mona School of Business (MSB) at a ceremony held on the Mona campus yesterday.
The recipients of the scholarships are Janice Smith, Fiona Thompson and Alexis Chin, all full-time MBA students at the Mona School of Business (MSB).
Two of the three scholarships, valued at a total of $1.6 million are named after Sir Alister McIntyre, economist and former vice chancellor of the University of the West Indies. These two scholarships were awarded to Janice Smith and Fiona Thompson and were funded by the Bank of Nova Scotia through the Scotiabank Jamaica Foundation. A third scholarship, the Lamour Wills Memorial Scholarship, valued at $500,000 was also presented to Alexis Chin, in honour of the late Lamour Wills, a former employee of the MSB who passed away last year.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Mr. William Clarke managing director for the Bank of Nova Scotia, said the scholarships represented part of an ongoing relationship with the UWI which preceded the establishment of the Scotiabank Foundation in 1996 as the bank has provided scholarships for staff members and their children studying at UWI long before.
EDUCATION AWARDS
Since then however, several scholarships have been awarded to students and this year the Scotiabank Jamaica Founda-tion has allotted $30.7 million to spend on education alone.
Over the years the foundation has contributed some $267 million to the areas of health, education and community projects and also participates in career days, internship programmes, and special lectures at UWI.
"We understand the need to support the university in all areas where possible--to make the educational programmes more practical and realistic," said Mr. Clarke. "Our institution recruits excellence and since we look to the University of the West Indies for the majority of our recruits and to provide advanced training for present employees, we believe that it is prudent to form an alliance that supports the university in delivering the brightest and best students for our human resource needs," said Mr. Clarke.
Sir Alister McIntyre encouraged the students to use their knowledge in the development of appropriate responses to the imminent changes which would impact the Caribbean region once new trade agreements were enacted in the next few years. He said the introduction of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, Free Trade Area of the Americas, and other global trade agreements would make the Caribbean very vulnerable if appropriate action was not taken to respond the situation.
