Shot in the arm for students

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THE journey towards receiving a tertiary education certificate has been long and hard for Lau Yuen Wah who cried when she related her story to those present at the Carlsberg Hua Zong Education Fund’s (CEF) study loan presentation ceremony.

“My family is not well off and my parents are not well educated but I have always hoped to be the first in my family to further my studies in a university,” Lau started.

She related how her father lost his job during the financial crisis earlier in the year and how her mother had sold her jewellery and worked two jobs to pay for her education.

“My academic records were good enough to earn me a scholarship from my university that paid for my tuition fees but I still had to pay for the examination fees that were in British pounds,” said Lau, who is studying financial accountancy at Nilai University College said.

She was one of the 31 students who received study loans totalling RM450,000 from the 2009 Carlsberg Hua Zong Education Fund (CEF) — an interest-free study loan established to help needy students pursue their higher education.

Lian Bee Ying, 23, who is studying financial accountancy at Tunku Abdul Rahman College and pursuing her advanced diploma, had also almost given up on her dream of continuing her studies.

“I was working for three years after school when I realised that I could not go very far without a certificate from a higher education institution. I saved up as much money as possible but it was still insufficient,” Lian said.

She too had received a scholarship from her college that paid for her tuition fees but was unsure of how to finance her examination fees.

Big smiles: The study loan recipients and their parents posing for a group photo with Chin, Pheng and Cheng along with the other Hua Zong central committee members.

The study loan that both of them received would grant them RM5,000 per academic year that is drawn from the CEF’s revolving fund of RM5mil.

This year’s batch of recipients come from all over the country and are enrolled in both local and foreign institutions of higher education, pursuing all kinds of courses from medicine to finance to interior design.

“I hope the contribution that they received today will make a difference towards the betterment of the students and community,” Carsberg Malaysia executive director Datuk Chin Voon Loong said during the event.

He added that all the students who received the loan possessed good academic results, were active in co-curricular activities and posssessed a strong passion for the Chinese language.

“Perhaps one day we can extend our education fund’s website role to become a more interac­­tive platform for the students to exchange information,” Chin said.

Also present at the ceremony was Federation of Chinese Associations of Malaysia (FeCAM or Hua Zong) president Tan Sri Datuk Pheng Yin Huah and his deputy president Cheng Lai Hock as well as other members of the central committee.

Already in its 12th year, CEF has helped 467 students since it was established, donated 1329 computers to schools and provided computer courses for 1000 teachers.