A French foundation granted Tuesday 170 scholarships worth VND1.4 billion (US$66,000) to poor but high-achieving students in central Vietnam.

The Odon Vallet Foundation, established by French Professor Odon Vallet, presented the grants to 20 college students and 150 high school students from Lam Dong, Khanh Hoa, and Ninh Thuan Provinces via the Rencontre du Vietnam (Meet Vietnam) organization during a ceremony in the tourist city of Da Lat.

Each high school student received VND7.5 million ($357) in cash while a university student was awarded VND12 million ($571).   

The foundation will give almost VND19 billion ($900,000) in scholarships to Vietnamese students and young researchers in the 2013-2014 academic year.

Since 2001 it has presented over 20,000 scholarships of VND100 billion ($4.8 million) to Vietnamese students.

Odon Vallet, a law and public administration professor at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris VII Diderot, decided in 1999 to devote all of his family inheritance, worth 100 million euros ($132 million), to a fund granting scholarships to poor students who have excellent achievements in studies and research activities in France and Vietnam.

Meet Vietnam was founded as a science and education organization in 1993 by overseas Vietnamese Professor Tran Thanh Van.