50 Zimbabwean students, being sponsored by a Chinese company Qingdao Hengshun Zhongsheng Group,?at a cost of 12 million Chinese yuan (US$1.8 million), will be studying at Ocean University of China in east China's Qingdao city for the next four years.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday held a farewell ceremony for 50 students who are going to undertake undergraduate studies at Ocean University of China.

50 students will study under the auspices of the Presidential Scholarship Program whose patron is President Mugabe. Since its launch in 1995 to assist academically gifted but underprivileged children in Zimbabwe, the Presidential Scholarship Program has sent students to study in South Africa only, with about 20,000 Zimbabwean students having benefited so far.