BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - YOUNG women in the twin-island Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis continue to excel in the academic arena as four of them were recently awarded the 2016 Michael L King Honorary Scholarship Grant.
The programme, which is in its ninth year, saw Vanee Williams, Kerese Dias, Sherielle Forbes and Kimesha Sutton being awarded.
Chairman of the Board of Directors for the TDC Group of Companies, Earle Kelly charged the scholars, all of whom are studying abroad, to be committed to their course of study.
He also called on those students who have already completed their studies as well as current undergraduates to return home and invest, and to be productive citizens for the betterment of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Kelly reminded that there is no stipulation to the scholarship which is US$5,000 per an awardee - but it is expected that those who would have been awarded would render the opportunities available to them overseas meaningless and return with ideas to develop a business or institution of their own, since a lot of the private entities such as TDC, Horsford’s and others would not always have employment opportunities.
At the Award Ceremony held at the TDC Conference Room in Basseterre, Education Officer attached to the Ministry of Education, Debbie Isaac told representatives of the students that the recipients should work hard to achieve their set goals.
She opined that that the continued gesture by the TDC Group of Companies is testimony to the importance of human development in the Federation, and wished the programme long live and lasting success.
This year, the Michael L King Scholarship Selection Committee disclosed that it had some 35 applications from both St. Kitts and Nevis from which the four scholars were selected.
According to the Committee, Williams is an undergraduate at the Monroe College and Dias is studying Finance at the Midwestern State University at the same level; both of whom are from St. Kitts, while Forbes is pursuing Management Information Systems and Sutton is pursuing Early Childhood Education at the Midwstern State University.
The Committee declared that as of this year, it would no longer render financial assistance to persons pursuing graduate studies.
From 2008 to date, 35 students have benefitted from the Michael L King Scholarship Grant in which some US$180,000 were expended.
Over that time, the Committee had received 250 applications, 35 of which were in 2016 - 25 from St. Kitts and 10 from Nevis.
