Since its inception in 2000, the Scholarship has been granted to more than 100 individuals. It is the trustees’ ambition to award c.10 scholarships a year.
We grant scholarships to deserving students wanting to study mining related degrees at southern African universities. The applicants come from two sources: direct from the universities and secondly on secondment from mining companies, where we have joint venture agreements for their relevant employees to benefit from the grant of a scholarship.
Examples of the disciplines are…
Geology, Geochemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Mining Engineering. These can be both at under graduate and post graduate level & the successful completion of these courses enables these students to then progress on to further their careers, which they would otherwise not have been able to do.
Universities
The scholarship was pioneered through a relationship with the Geology Department of Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. The process works by the universities providing a shortlist of suitable candidates from those that have asked for financial assistance. The trustees of the Fund will then consider the CV’s of the applicants together with the comments from the relevant department before deciding on who should benefit from the scholarship.
We currently have relationships with the following universities: Rhodes University, University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand, Pretoria University and University of Zambia. We will establish links & relationships with other universities as necessary.
Joint venture with mining companies
Recently, JBSF has been working with various mining companies to identify deserving candidates, where both parties’ educational ambitions are aligned and these have led to successful cooperation. We co-sponsor students put forward by those in the mining industry that are sent to a particular university that suits their technical need
Student profile
As is the case at all universities, students come from all backgrounds and have funding from many different sources but the intention of the trustees is to support those students that come from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds but at the same time demonstrate hard working, capable & deserving qualities.
Cost
For illustration, the cost of a full bursary for the 1 year post graduate course at Rhodes University is approx. £11,000/annum (R 132,000). This includes not only all the tuition fees but also accommodation, medical & ancillary costs together with a small stipend. Most of the bursaries that we grant cover just the tuition, books & field trips etc, where the approx. cost ranges from £7,000 – £9000/annum (R84,000-R108,000).