SCHOLARSHIPS in Bermuda are complex, satisfying need for remembrance and for thanks, offering young Bermudians jobs for when they finish university, affecting the population's access to education and responding to the changing structure of the economy and the needs of society.

As the scholarship season is drawing to a close, and American universities are starting their courses, the Mid-Ocean News decided to take a look on the other side of the non-Governmental funds: those who set up and operate the Ewan Sampson Scholarship Trust, the Mrs. C. Vail Zuill Scholarship and the John W. Butterfield Scholarship.

AS costs in higher education grow, scholarships are an increasingly welcome boon to the community, but the recent falls in stock markets and continuing low rates of interest pose a financial challenge for those managing scholarship funds as well as those depending on the funds.

The Ewan Sampson Scholarship Trust (ESST) employs a combination of fund management and pro bono operation to manage its $12,500 scholarships, according to its fund manager, William Maycock, president of the Winchester Global Trust Company.

"It's a challenge: how you achieve income (for the grants) against a background of low and declining interest rates," he admitted.

In order to make the scholarship viable without spending the capital, the Trust needed to raise one million dollars and, he added, the fund was nearly half-way there, with contributions and pledges of contributions of just below half a million dollars.

"This scholarship was achieved by donations from the general public," Mr. Maycock stated. "It took the hard efforts of a committee, not corporate sponsorship.

"The ESST's outreach programme is also run on a voluntary basis, and we as trustees do not charge fees. The accountants and auditors of the scholarship also do it without charge." By contrast, Deloitte & Touche operates its John W. Butterfield Scholarship out the business itself, according to local partner David Mutch. Not only does his firm see this as "good corporate citizenship", it makes the scholarship independent of the stock market.

"We regard our scholarship programme as a business operating cost," he explained. "Although it's named, the partners of Deloitte & Touche bear the cost of it.

"Some of the scholarship funds are essentially endowments or investment funds," he admitted, but his partnership's strategy would keep their fund above water.

Similarly financed out of current funds is the new Mrs. C. Vail Zuill award, said Karen Stout, co-chairperson of the Junior Service League's scholarship committee. Mrs. Zuill also made a large contribution.

Despite her financial help, the naming of the award reveals another major impetus for scholarships: honouring or remembering an individual.

The Junior Service League named Mrs. Zuill's scholarship as an honour to its founding member in her lifetime, said Mrs. Stout.

By contrast, the Ewan Sampson scholarship - set up in 1998 - was named after 17-year-old Bermudian Ewan Sampson, who was offered places at four separate universities for a degree in IT, but was killed in a cycle accident.

AND the Trust takes being a namesake very much to heart, according to Lynne Winfield, a selection committee member and founder of the ESST's outreach programme.

"He had his own little IT business going. He would charge certain businesses, but would help people like you and me for free," Mrs. Winfield remembered. "He was on his way to help someone (when he had his accident).

"He volunteered hours and hours down at the hospital as a candy-striper. The staff at the hospital were really distraught when he came in (after the accident)." Those who administer the funds say that scholarships both reflect and affect the structure of Bermuda's economy and society.

"Thirty years ago, there were a lot more students interested in going into tourism," noted Mr. Mutch. "Today, other scholarships are focused on needs (of different industries): insurance and its needs, tourism and its needs. Our scholarship is for students in accounting, actuarial science, tax advisory services, IT, even the law."

The structure of Bermuda's economy had changed, he said.

Bermuda's society has changed as well, said Mrs. Stout. "In today's environment, where people are so pressed for time, and there are fewer expatriate women available, charitable organisations suffer."

The scholarship award contains a commitment to contribute a year - the length of the scholarship - to community service in Bermuda.

"This (scholarship) is a kind of membership PR," she explained. The ESST also uses the scholarship to draw people to its cause: an IT mission which existed a decade ago, when a Bermuda International Business Association (BIBA) report revealed that IT would become one of the biggest industries in Bermuda.

"The international business industry (in Bermuda) developed as a business effort, and I don't think it occurred to anyone to deliberately exclude Bermudians," said Richard Butterfield, chairman of the ESST fund-raising committee and former chairman of BIBA.

"But it happened. And it's a very bad thing.

"And we are trying to make sure the same thing does not happen with our third major industry."

He noted that one of the principles of BIBA was to persuade Bermudians that they did get something out of international business.

Mrs. Winfield also underlined the way scholarships could reflect such changes in the job market, saying that, apart from being a memorial to a young man good with computers, the ESST's orientation on IT was a recognition of the importance of technology.

"Every cash register in a store - we call them cash registers, but they're really computers. You need computers whether you're doing archaeology or underwater basket-weaving; you will have a computer in front of you!"

"IT should no longer be an option in the education system," she declared. "It's right up there with maths and English."

"The ESST has an outreach programme which works together with B-TEC - the Bermuda Technology Education Co-operative," she added.

"The Ewan Sampson programme goes into schools, and brings speakers. We have four or five young Bermudian speakers who have been successful in IT, like the young man from BermyNet.com (Brenton Richardson).

"Like B-TEC, we are working 'backward' down through the classes; (we want to bring the IT message to) every high school, then every middle school, then every primary school."

She affirmed the scholarship's mission for change, saying that the point of their work, and their collaboration with B-TEC, was to have more students applying to the scholarship in future.

"We realised that you can't just sit there and offer a scholarship if you don't have a pool (of applicants) to draw from!"

Everyone agrees that the long term goal - both companies' need for candidates and young Bermudians' need for jobs - was one of the most important aspects of the scholarship process.

Young Bermudians had a perception of a "glass ceiling" with regard to international companies, said Mrs. Winfield. "But we now have CEOs who were originally chief information officers of companies."

Mr. Butterfield offered Eddie Saints, general manager of Cable & Wireless and a Bermudian, as an example.

And, at networking forums held by ESST at Bermuda-based companies, executives were trying to push the message: "We can't tell you how desperately we need you," she stressed. Training and hiring Bermudians was cost-effective for international companies, as Bermudians were less likely to "uproot after two years.

"This is what every international company wants."

Young people sponsored by Deloitte & Touche's scholarship "invariably" came to work after their tax, actuarial, accountancy, legal or technology degrees, said Mr. Mutch.

"But it's not an obligation; it's an opportunity," he added.