The Singapore Indian Development Association (Sinda) on Saturday signed four memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to give Indian students access to greater educational opportunities.

Three of Sinda's new partnerships are with the Ritsumeiken Asia Pacific University, Mages Institute of Excellence, and Singapore Accountancy Academy Global Education. These schools will offer a mixture of full and partial scholarships at the diploma and degree levels to Indian students in need of financial aid. The fourth was with the Global Indian Foundation, which pledged to donate $1 million spread out over the next decade in support of SINDA's tuition programmes - STEP and Project Teach.

The money will be used to develop a more customised curriculum for students. About 1,200 students from low-income families were also presented with bursaries and back-to-school kits for next year.

Senior Minister of State for Law and Education Indranee Rajah, who is also Sinda president, encouraged scholarship and bursary recepients to make full use of the opportunity. "If people who have donated have done so because they had faith in you, you must make good on that faith," she said.

Minister for Social and Family Development Chan Chun Sing, who was guest of honour at the ceremony, added: "I too was a bursary holder many years ago, and without the bursary I may not have been able to complete my education...As you receive your bursaries, continue to do well in school and maybe one day...you too will pay it forward, just as this generation has paid it forward for you."