Date:20/07/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/07/20/stories/2004072001511900.htm

Back HSBC Education Trust's micro-credit project for private schools

Our Bureau

Hyderabad , July 19

UK-based HSBC Education Trust has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT) to launch a project called EQUIP (Enabling Quality Improvement Programmes in Schools) that will facilitate private schools to get micro finance from HSBC.

The project, scheduled to be launched on Children's Day (November 14) this year, will allow private schools that admitted children of low-income families to get financial aid from the bank to improve the infrastructure. The pilot project, to be implemented in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, will later be rolled out across the country.

Ms Dame Mary Richardson, Chief Executive Officer of the trust, and Mr Andrew Stuart, Chairman of CfBT, signed the MoU at a function organised here on Monday. CfBT is a UK-based not-for-profit education resource management organisation.

About 30 private schools in the city have shown interest in joining the initiative. Of them, 16 will be given loans in the first phase.

Mr Niall S.K. Booker, Group General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of HSBC, said education and environment were the two main focus areas of the bank's community initiatives world over.

Ms N. Rajyalakshmi, Minister for School Education of the AP Government, asked the banking major to expand the scheme to government schools that form more than 80 per cent of the 91,000 schools in the State.