The Skye Foundation has been awarding scholarships to high-achieving students based on outstanding academic achievement in any discipline, for 28 years.  These awards celebrate excellence across all fields at South African universities with a proven record of quality research. Of the total of 400 awards made over the years, one third have been to UCT students. The feedback from universities such as Cambridge and Oxford is that the South African students have been superbly prepared for overseas study and indicate UCT as a marker of excellence.

How the Skye Foundation started

Brian Zylstra and his wife Dorothy set up the Skye Foundation in 1997, when Brian sold his successful company. Brian wanted to use the proceeds to assist people and decided to invest in assisting students.  They started small with sports bursaries for students who couldn’t afford student fees and wanted to provide opportunities for South African students to study abroad. He also raised money for endowed Chairs at WITS university.  When Brian died, the Skye Foundation endured with the Zylstra family at its helm. Brian's eldest son Philip Zylstra is chairman of the board and Dorothy Zylstra and her younger sons David and John (who studied at UCT) are trustees.

From Zoologist to fundraiser and then funder

Dr Neville Passmore, a zoologist who was an academic and active researcher at WITS University, spent a great deal of time out in the field, studying animal sounds and frogs, segued into fundraising unintentionally.  He had raised research money from a farmer and was approached by the Vice-Chancellor of WITS to move out of academia and take on the challenge of fundraising and working with donors in the WITS foundation. When Neville went to thank Brian for his support of WITS students, Brian invited Neville to join the Skye Foundation.  Neville went away and thought about the proposal for two weeks and came up with a plan to reward excellence in all fields at any university in South Africa. They set up a board of trustees and brought in some academics to assist with the processes. Initially, they started with about six students who did postgraduate studies at local universities; however, soon the bulk of students chose to study overseas. 

The foundation continued to grow, and the money Brian left in his will allowed the operation to expand.  For 28 years, Neville has been managing the Skye Foundation and providing access to postgraduate study opportunities for high-achieving South African students.

Selecting the cream of the crop

In determining how to find the best candidates for the awards, the trustees settled on the excellent strategy of making it a requirement that Deans and academic staff at the universities recommend and nominate the potential candidates.  The awards were made to candidates of exceptional merit who distinguished themselves academically in their first or subsequent degrees and are under the age of 30. The approach of requiring nomination by Deans was embraced by the Deans. About 15 years ago, Cambridge University asked how they could get their hands on more candidates of this calibre and the Skye Foundation set up joint scholarships with Cambridge and Oxford universities.

Funding has given the recipients wings to soar in their fields

“The recipients of the scholarship are an extraordinary group of people who have succeeded at such a wide range of fields from mathematics, science, music, engineering to drama”, commented Neville. They have thrived and gone on to achieve distinctions, accolades and fulfil important roles in business, government, healthcare and academia in South Africa and throughout the world. For many students, the experience of studying abroad was life-changing. One of the recipients had received a distinction for an MPhil at Cambridge in Biochemistry and when, after a hiatus, they contacted Neville, it was to say that they had completed a PhD and working as a senior scientist had a candidate drug for Parkinson’s disease in animal trials!  A violinist from the programme is now the first violin for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.  Yet another student is a saxophonist at the Hague Conservatory, where her supervisor says she will be one of the next generation of world saxophonists.  Yet another student who studied mime in Paris is now teaching drama to deaf students in South Africa. Neville recounts how a supervisor of one of the students in the Cavendish Physics laboratory at Cambridge (where 30 Novel prize winners came from) wrote to him saying that the student was not only top of their Master’s class, but their work was better than most of the PhD students and postdoctoral students and better than some members of staff!  Such is the quality of academic grounding produced by South African universities…

The Skye Foundation comes to an end

This is the last year of funding students and Neville is now retiring at the age of 78.  “This has not been a job – it has been a mission. I have enjoyed engaging with these exceptional students, being a sounding board for them, solving problems and offering support and suggestions.  It has been rewarding to see the students go on to be successful in their fields,” said Neville.

The end of the Skye Foundation Trust will leave a gaping hole in postgraduate funding for overseas study for South African students.  It is hoped that there will be others who can take up the reins of an amazing project like this that takes exceptional South African students across all disciplines and gives them opportunities to study abroad and develop their skills.