In a ceremony earlier this week to mark the third anniversary of a Nissan Motor Co. scholarship program, Chief Operating Officer Carlos Ghosn described the program as an investment in the future.

Since 1998, Nissan Motor has extended the Nissan-NPO Learning Scholarship Program to students who work for nonprofit organizations in various fields. Recipients' work ranges from aiding in city-planning to volunteering at a parasite museum.

"Through this framework, we provide an opportunity for young people to learn and are investing in the future. NPOs demonstrate a diversified world before young people. We hope that it will expand their ability to think and help them to take a big leap," Ghosn told scholarship recipients Monday in fluent Japanese.

Through the scholarship, Nissan aims to encourage students to gain experience at NPOs where professional and independent activities are needed. The scholarship is not tied to any recruit activities by Nissan Motor or NPOs, the automaker said.

For fiscal 2000, Nissan selected 18 students out of 98 applicants from 27 universities. Those students will work up to 300 hours through February at 16 NPOs in the Kansai and Kanto regions. The automaker will pay about 1,000 yen per hour for the scholarship recipients' work.

During the ceremony, Tadashi Yamamoto of the Japan Center for International Exchange, one of the NPOs receiving students under the program, stressed the importance of partnerships between NPOs and the government.

As issues become complex and diversified, the government alone cannot cope with them and thus NPOs, equipped with expertise and flexibility in their own fields, are expanding their roles, Yamamoto said.