Allan Gray has established 10 annual scholarships worth a total of R1,25-million for full-time MBA students at the University of Cape Town graduate school of business (GSB).
The company has been providing funding for previously disadvantaged students at the school for a number of years. According to Dr Vash Mungal, director of the MBA programme, the new scholarships will empower 10 previously disadvantaged individuals to study for an MBA and will make a major contribution to addressing the entrepreneurship and job creation challenges facing the country.
“We are extremely grateful to Allan Gray for their funding of previously disadvantaged MBA students at the GSB — these scholarships will give many talented people the opportunity to undertake the MBA when circumstances may not have allowed them to otherwise,” she said.
“Candidates who are eligible for the new scholarships must not only have excellent academic and professional records, but also some entrepreneurial flair and drive,” said Mungal.
The scholarships will cover the students’ MBA fees, accommodation costs and other sundry expenses, and are also available to students based outside Cape Town.
According to Anthony Farr, CEO of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, which is coordinating the funding, the scholarships for MBA students brings the GSB funding in line with the bigger picture of what Allan Gray is trying to achieve in leveraging education to develop entrepreneurial activity in South Africa.
“Allan Gray is looking at one of the key issues in South Africa — that of unemployment,” said Farr. “And through the foundation and other activities we hope to make a contribution to job creation through entrepreneurship development. The UCT GSB’s annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report lends significant weight to the case for entrepreneurship development — the report shows clearly that skilled entrepreneurs are significant job creators.”
He added that Allan Gray is creating a long-term initiative that is focused on making a high growth impact.
The Allan Gray Orbis Foundation was founded in 2005 with the specific mission of fostering job creation by funding the education and training of prospective high growth entrepreneurs.
It offers successful candidates, called “fellows”, full financial support to pursue a university degree in most fields, including commerce, engineering and science. In addition, during the course of their studies, fellows are exposed to business and entrepreneurship, including a thorough mentorship programme.
Once they graduate, the foundation expects that fellows will work for several years to gain practical experience. It is also within the mandate of the foundation to fund the postgraduate studies of those fellows that excel.
Farr anticipates that in the future a number of these university fellows will go on to undertake the GSB MBA with the assistance of the new annual scholarships.
Further, E_, the new 18,9% shareholder of Allan Gray, will in future also provide subsidised finance for compelling ideas that emerge from the graduates of the fellowship programme. The E_ Trust will provide the start-up capital for this.
The foundation plans to continue to test and refine the fellowship programme while seeking to identify and enrol a further 80 candidates as fellows to bring the total up to 160. It will also begin work on a similar programme for schools that it intends to roll out during 2008.