International Tobacco and Cigarettes Company launches 'Bidaya Scholarship Fund'

The initiative was launched in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education, and targets Jordanian youth that are with solid academic accomplishment, but without the means to allow them entry into Jordanian public universities.

Students applying for the Bidaya fund must have already obtained their High School General Certificate of Secondary Education (Tawjihi) and they must have all ready been accepted in the public universities of Jordan.

When asked to comment about this full academic scholarship, Mr. Samer Fakhouri, General Manager of ITC, said, 'We believe in providing equal opportunities to all citizens, but we also want to ensure that the students benefiting from this fund will in fact be ones who will be able to give back to their local community. Our selection criterion is a meticulous one, and all potential applicants are assessed according to a fair and competitive evaluation system.

In our evaluation, we take into consideration academic performance, living conditions, place of residence, and the number of siblings currently enrolled in learning institutions across Jordan, and this scholarship is open to students who scored 80% or more in their final Tawjihi results'.

When asked about the aims behind setting up the scholarship program, Mr. Fakhouri said ' We at ITC strongly support initiatives that target youth since we believe that education is a molder of minds for future generations. Our scholarship is open to 12 individuals each year, and it is our way of putting our strong sense of social responsibility to a good cause. By investing in education, we are investing in the very minds that are to shape our future markets and our future economies. Through education we strengthen the Jordanian reservoir of human resources in ways that make us stand out in the regional and international economic arenas. I am glad to see this fund brought to life and I am sure that the 12 individuals we are to select this year are very deserving. I have great hopes for the future of this fund, and I hope to see it grow with the enthusiasm and help of both the private and the public sectors.'