ABB Education Trust

The ABB Education Trust is a bursary-granting trust that carries the ABB name but is independently operated, with no formal affiliation, partnership, or agency relationship with the ABB Group itself. The trust was set up to widen access to engineering careers in South Africa, and it channels its funding specifically towards Black female students, a group that remains significantly under-represented in engineering professions. The trust funds study in Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering, and it requires recipients to have already completed a strong first year before applying, which allows the trust to support students who have already shown they can manage the demands of an engineering degree. By setting a household income ceiling of R600,000 per year, the trust also targets students who genuinely need financial support to continue their studies, rather than those who could self-fund. Because it does not fund repeat courses or outstanding balances from earlier years, the trust positions itself as a forward-looking investment in a student's remaining years of study rather than a rescue fund for past debt. Publicly available information about the ABB Education Trust does not describe a binding work-back or employment obligation linking recipients to ABB or the trust after graduation, so applicants should not assume a guaranteed job forms part of the award.