At the official ceremony where the grants were handed out, rector Dr. Ágoston Szél said that in addition to supporting the work of the students, the objective of the scholarship is to call attention to the cohesion program. The program’s primary aim was helping young people gain acceptance to the university, where however they will be expected to perform at the same high level as anyone else. The current, HUF 150,000 grant is a kind of recognition for their efforts, he noted. Chancellor Dr. Károly Szász emphasized that the board of trustees of the foundation supported the awarding of the grants unanimously, and the total HUF 600,000 sum represents the entirety of the funds available to the foundation at present.
The four winning students are all from the faculties of medicine or health sciences, and three of them are in their second year, with one a fourth-year student. They talked about coming from poor families and how the program has changed their lives by granting them the opportunity to study at the university.
In the course of a survey conducted in the autumn of 2017 among the university’s current and previous students, teachers, researchers, patients, as well as the parents of students, more than 1600 responses were received. Around half of them (ca. 700) said the creation of grants for students should be among the primary tasks of the foundation, which prompted the board of trustees to announce the application for study grants.
Eszter Keresztes
Translation: Tamás Deme
Photo: Zoltán Adrián