Job agency start-up by University of Buckingham graduate will help fund disabled people's studies

A graduate has pledged to donate part of the commission earned by his new international recruitment agency to help disabled students around the world go to university.

Zikang Li, 25, who has just completed an MBA at the University of Buckingham, started the business partly because he has cerebral palsy and appreciates the challenges of studying a degree in a different country.

Panda Education Consultation, based at Wolverton, Milton Keynes, will make scholarship payments directly to the recruited disabled students once they have finished their first term on campus.

Zikang, who is from China, is moving to London to further develop a website called Platform Disability Forum, which helps disabled people with entrepreneurship and job hunting, as well as flagging up educational opportunities for people with disabilities.

He will work with a group of other consultants on that project.

He said: "I have travelled to more than 10 countries around the world and studied in three - England, Ireland and Canada.

“I wanted a place that could give me highly personal care and lots of help. That place was the University of Buckingham. It did this.

“The reason for me to establish this scholarship is that I want to hold an umbrella for someone when they are in the rain, as that is what has been done for me at Buckingham.”

Vice chancellor Prof James Tooley said: "These are great initiatives. Zikang has done brilliantly to get the scholarship set up while doing his MBA at Buckingham. We are all very proud of what he has achieved."