BBC News Online: Education

Gates gives $25m to Harvard

The grant, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been given to the university's school of public health and will support a project to reduce the incidence of Aids in Nigeria.

It follows a grant of almost $45m to Harvard's medical school earlier this year to support research into tuberculosis.

Last week, the foundation gave $15m to public schools in Oakland in California, which in turn followed the handing out of $56m to several school districts across the United States.

'Gates Scholars'

This month, Mr Gates foundation also provided $2.7m towards training school administrators and head teachers in the use of information technology.

In the United Kingdom, Mr Gates announced £1m this year for the development of a scheme intended to widen access to laptop computers.

And Mr Gates has put $210m into a fund for 200 non-UK students to attend Cambridge University, with the "Gates Cambridge Scholars" having echoes of the Rhodes scholarship scheme at Oxford.

Last year, the man often described as among the world's richest people gave $1bn towards encouraging more young people from ethnic minorities in the United States to attend university.

The scholarship scheme is intended to offer support for at least 20,000 over the next 20 years.