Bankers invest in brightest students with £12m

More than £12m is to be spent over five years to help more than 200 bright students attend leading schools and universities.

HSBC’s Scholarship Programme is designed to support education for students who have strong academic potential but come from disadvantaged areas and backgrounds.

Working in six of the UK’s largest cities, the scholarship programme will fund more than 100 places at 20 leading independent schools for sixth-formers, over the next five years.

This includes Sheffield High and the Grammar School at Leeds.

The programme builds on an existing successful pilot between Kingsford Community School and Brighton College, which has been running for four years.

During this time eight students from Kingsford School, located in a deprived inner-city area of London, have attended Brighton College, a leading independent school.

All of the students on this HSBC Scholarship Programme who have completed their sixth-form studies have gone on to win places at leading universities.

HSBC’s University Scholarship Programme will also match-fund tuition fees for 90 academically able undergraduate candidates from less wealthy backgrounds, helping them to attend some of the country’s leading universities. The programme starts in September 2012 and will run for five years.

Leeds and Sheffield universities will be taking part in the programme along with Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and University College London.

This extension is a response to independent research commissioned by HSBC, undertaken by Prof Steve Hodkinson, former vice chancellor of Brunel University, which found that the bank could make a “significant difference to the learning futures” of young people through a programme of targeted educational philanthropy.

Simon Martin, head of group corporate sustainability at HSBC, said: “This programme invests in the futures of talented young people from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.

“Not only is this hugely important for each individual student who benefits from the programme, but hopefully it will also contribute to the future economic and social wellbeing of their communities.”