UTech, Jamaica 2015-16 Annual Report

over a 3-year period. The presentation was made at a ceremony held at Kings House; Acting President; Professor Colin Gyles attended. The Jamaica Observer Table Talk Scholarships & Awards Honouring Past Awardees – the Jamaica Observer and the University have maintained a strong relationship for over a decade. In commemoration of this milestone; the Jamaica Observer hosted a Forum in May 2015 to recognize past UTech Ja. awardees. The keynote presentation was from the inaugural scholarship awardee from 2005; Mr Alrik Sucki, who is current employed as the Food and Beverage Team Lead at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. Scholarships Awarded – The Observer demonstrated its support to students from the School of Hospitality & Tourism Management (SHTM) by awarding a total of $1.75 Million Dollars in scholarships and bursaries. Internship for SHTM Students – In addition, for the fifth consecutive year, students of SHTM were afforded the opportunity to work as interns at the prestigious Jamaica Observer ‘Table Talk’ Food Awards. A total of 50 students participated, and the Jamaica Observer gave an additional $150,000.00 as stipend for the student interns. SPONSORSHIP The University has formed a number of collaborative partnerships with public and private sector entities; both locally and internationally; to secure sponsorship for students to fund tuition and other school related expenses. Sponsorships are not academic awards; instead they are given for the most part, as a form of social intervention through a government agency/ department; or as employee/employer support from a Private Sector firm. At the close of the 2015/16 fiscal year, the total value of sponsorship was $1.4 Billion Dollars ($1,433,106,820 ); received from 210 public and private sector entities. Please note that this figure also includes 15 international sponsors. A total of 4,685 students benefitted ; see table 1.2 for details. Sponsorship Income Figure 1.2 below, gives a pictorial representation of the combined income from external sponsors. Quite noteworthy is the fact that the SLB represented 84% of total sponsorship income; with other government sponsors providing 7% and international sponsors providing 6%. EARN & STUDY Table 1.3 and Figure 1.4 below indicate that for the 2015/16 fiscal year, a total of 340 students were employed on the Earn & Study Programme across the three semesters. The current cost of the programme is $24.9 Million Dollars ($24,919,010) . This funding for the programme. The Expanded Earn & Study Programme The Expanded Programme was launched in August of 2010 in response to the tremendous demands being placed on the Regular Earn & Study Programme, and the decline in budgetary support. Additionally, the search by students for additional sources to fund their school related expense, as well as UTech’s ever- increasing manpower needs, has created the impetus for the implementation of the Expanded Programme. Funding for the Expanded Programme comes from the Division/Faculty budgets instead of the regular programme budget. For the current review period, 107 students were employed on the Expanded Programme at a cost of $9,287,500.00 . Please note that the figure for the Expanded Programme has been included in the overall programme figure of $24.9 Million Dollars quoted above. STUDENT WELFARE PROGRAMMES For the 2015/16 fiscal year, a total of 1148 students benefited from welfare assistance in the form of grants, lunch subsidy, bus passes or sports meals. This brings the total expenditure on welfare activities to $10.1 Million Dollars ($10,103,876); representing a 22% decrease in the total amount of monies spent over the previous year. Of the $10.1 Million Dollars , $7.7 Million Dollars ($ 7,739,876.00) was used to assist 1078 of the University’s most needy students; while the remaining $2.3 Million Dollars assisted student athletes with meals. Page 31 University of Technology, Jamaica ANNUAL REPORT 2015-2016