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• Her Royal Highness Raja Permaisuri of Perak Darul Ridzuan Tuanku Zara Salim graced the ceremony and presented scholarships to recipients
• A total of RM745 million in scholarships awarded to thousands of deserving students pursuing their education, as of 2024
Sunway City Kuala Lumpur, 22 October 2024 – The Jeffrey Cheah Foundation (JCF) today held its Scholarships & Awards Ceremony 2024, awarding RM75 million in scholarships this year.
The foundation, Malaysia’s largest education-focused social enterprise, has disbursed more than RM745 million in scholarships to date, benefitting thousands of deserving students throughout the years.
Her Royal Highness Raja Permaisuri of Perak Darul Ridzuan Tuanku Zara Salim, and Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Sir Dr. Jeffrey Cheah KBE AO, founder and trustee of Jeffrey Cheah Foundation, presented the scholarships and congratulated the recipients on their achievement.
The award ceremony saw the presentation of scholarships in various categories, including Sunway University Postgraduate Studentships, Sunway University Postgraduate Scholarships, The Chancellors Scholarship, Sunway Excellence Scholarship, Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali Scholarship for Creative Arts And Music, Jeffrey Cheah Foundation Community Scholarship, as well as Sunway - Victoria University Excellence Scholarship.
“The Jeffrey Cheah Foundation’s commitment to nation building, exemplified by the Foundation’s tagline Nurturing the Seeds of Wisdom, is founded on our belief that making quality education affordable and accessible is crucial in creating a more progressive, sustainable and inclusive future for all Malaysians,” shared Cheah, who is also the founder and chairman of Sunway Group.
As a strong advocate of quality education, world-class research and sustainable development, Cheah’s personal aim is to award several billion Ringgit worth of scholarships in his lifetime.
Cheah also paid tribute to Her Royal Highness Raja Permaisuri of Perak Darul Ridzuan Tuanku Zara Salim’s firm dedication to elevating the Malaysian education system and Tuanku’s promotion of ethical values.
As part of JCF’s commitment to nation-building through quality education, a teacher professional development programme was launched to advance Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Malaysia, earlier this year.
JCF is funding the development and delivery of a capacity-building development programme on ESD for teachers in national and national-type school nationwide, as well as the expansion of the programme to 30 more schools, involving more than 2,500 teachers nationwide.
This programme will advance Mission 4.7, a global initiative to advance transformative education for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which calls upon governments to ensure learners obtain the necessary knowledge, skills, values and attributes to achieve the SDGs.
In line with JCF’s steadfast commitment to advancing the SDGs, the foundation has gifted US$20 million to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN-SDSN) to establish the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development at Sunway University, as well as UN-SDSN’s Asia Headquarters in Sunway City Kuala Lumpur, which coordinates continent-wide sustainability initiatives alongside the New York and Paris offices.
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About Jeffrey Cheah Foundation
Adopting a social enterprise model, the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation (“JCF”) is the largest-of-its-kind in advancing education in Malaysia. The Foundation owns and governs all entities under Sunway Education Group, including Sunway University, Sunway Colleges and Sunway International Schools, among others. Through the unique not-for-profit structure of the Foundation, operating surpluses are ploughed back into the institutions or disbursed as scholarships, research grants and expansion of world-class facilities and top-notch faculty to ensure quality education in perpetuity. As of 2024, the Foundation has awarded more than RM745 million worth of scholarships to deserving and qualified Malaysian students from all walks of life.
The history of JCF began in 1997, when Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Sir Dr. Jeffrey Cheah KBE AO established the Sunway Education Trust Fund, which was converted to the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation in 2010. He transferred his entire equity stake in Sunway Education Group, worth several billion Ringgit at the time, to JCF in perpetuity. JCF is governed by a distinguished board of trustees with His Royal Highness Sultan of Selangor as its Royal Patron.