Mbombela - A total of 116 students from poor families in Mpumalanga have enrolled at various tertiary institutions, thanks to Eskom's bursary scheme.
The national bursary scheme, which only focused on students from Mpumalanga this year, was launched at the Mpumalanga Regional Training Trust (MRTT) in Mbombela on Tuesday.
"Eskom decided to offer bursaries to the Mpumalanga students this year because that is where 70% of Eskom's coal production comes from," said Eskom divisional head of human resource in Mpumalanga, Milly Khoza during the launch.
Khoza said the parastatal initially interviewed 300 potential candidates who applied for the bursaries last year.
"Only 116 of them met Eskom's criteria and 90% of the students are in the engineering field. Almost all of them are expected to serve Eskom for four years after their studies," he said.
He said it would be up to the students to stay with Eskom or leave after working there for four years.
Khoza said Eskom pays for tuition fees, accommodation, books and meals for the students.
He said that to qualify for the bursaries, students must achieve at least D symbols in Mathematics, Science and English.
He said to make the bursary scheme possible, Eskom entered into a partnership with the provincial Education Department.
Provincial Human Settlements MEC Siphosezwe Masango, who stood in for Education MEC Reginah Mhaule, said the scheme would address the shortage of scarce and critical skills in the province.
"We have been making a clarion call to business and private sector as a whole to come to the party and help in the development of human resource and improvement of skills in the province," said Masango.
"I am really proud that Eskom saw a need to embrace this call in this way; surely this is in keeping with our human resource development strategy and cannot go unnoticed."
He said the bursary scheme was an intervention that would rescue families from "the clutches of poverty" because students would sign employment contracts as soon as they complete their studies.
He said Eskom had also shown selfless service when they agreed to add six more students to their target of 110.
"This is a sign of genuine commitment and good faith, not just a compliance issue. For this reason we consider Eskom to have truly embodied the call by the nation to make education delivery everybody's enterprise," added Masango.
James Mosheni and Prudence Makola from the University of Pretoria's campus in Emalahleni were the two students who attended the launch on Tuesday.
Mosheni, who passed his matric at Elanga Secondary School near Emalahleni last year, said he gave up his social life to study so that he could qualify for the Eskom bursary.
"I come from an extended family of unemployed people, including my mother, uncles and grandmother who could not have afforded to send me to university; so I gave up my girlfriend and football last year to study hard so I can get this bursary. Luckily for me I passed with flying colours and here am I today," said Mosheni.
