PETALING JAYA: One hundred deserving young Malaysians will have the opportunity to further their studies through a scholarship programme worth RM2.2 million, established by Brickfields Asia College Education Group (BAC) and Free Malaysia Today.
The BAC-FMT Scholarship programme covers foundation, diploma, and degree courses in law, business, hospitality, communications, psychology, early childhood education, IT, accounting, and finance among others.
The scholarships are for selected foundation, diploma, and degree courses, and cover all tuition fees. The courses cost between RM7,900 and RM67,000, and students only need to pay an annual RM1,000 resource fee.
Tourism, arts and culture minister Nancy Shukri, who launched the programme, said many students would have the opportunity to build essential skills needed to help the tourism sector thrive once pandemic-induced restrictions are lifted.
“We need new people, new blood, young people to come in to play a role in developing or resetting our tourism and hospitality sector in the country,” she said at a panel hosted by FMT.
“If you want to get tourists, especially foreign tourists, to come here, we need to make them feel at home by getting people to master their languages. We also want to sell our country through storytelling, through digitalising all our stories.”
She encouraged young people with an interest in tourism and hospitality to “just go for it”, and she expects the sector to rebound strongly once the pandemic is adequately managed.
Raja Singham, managing director of BAC Education Group, said the scholarship reaffirmed their commitment to equitable access to education, adding that he hopes the partnership can help prepare more students for the challenges that lie ahead.
“In the future education is going to be all about relevance, providing graduates who know how to think, creating graduates who know how to learn,” he said, lamenting that higher education has generally been slow to change in response to new demands.
“We want to focus on building the solutions, but don’t have the energy, ability or resources to take it out to everybody. So that’s where ultimately the media, government, the institutions, these kinds of collaborations are what the people need to solve a lot of these problems.
FMT chairman Al-Ishsal Ishak said the collaboration is an extension of the company’s wider commitment to promoting young talent.
“At FMT, 71% of our workforce are below 30 years old… this is the philosophy and the soul of the organisation. It’s about building talent, building deep skills, and continuing the sustainability of the media industry.”
Interested students can head to BAC’s website to download the application form. All Malaysian citizens below the age of 25 are encouraged to apply.
