Scholarships forever?

The latest issue of Norrag News is devoted to overseas scholarships. The contributions in NN45 highlight old as well as new scholarships schemes, large and smaller ones, funded by OECD countries and newly emerging economies. The result is a rich spectrum of different scholarship programmes. Despite their variety, many of them show great similarities which is explained by the fact that the number of reasons why sponsors provide awards is rather limited. Scholarship programmes wish to realise one or more of the following objectives:

• to contribute to national public diplomacy and influence;
• to develop cooperation and exchanges in fields of politics, economy, culture, education and trade;
• to enhance the nation as a centre of excellence in higher education;
• to build up national capacity by sending scholars abroad;
• to develop human resources in developing countries.

Diplomacy, cooperation and trade 

Many countries such as France, Germany, UK, Japan and China invite large numbers of scholars and trainees to come to the mother country in the context of cultural or linguistic diplomacy, commercial diplomacy, and political diplomacy. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) funds no less than 57,000 awards annually at a cost of US$ 500 million, making it the largest scholarship scheme in the world. Not seldom these diplomatic motives are linked to a network of offices around the world which promote the country’s language and culture, e.g. Alliance Française, Goethe Institute, British Council and the Confucius Institute.

Japan encourages international students to come and study in the country because they not only reinforce Japan's global competitiveness but also foster mutual understanding between Japan and other nations, which could lead to global stability and peace. China wants to raise the number of Chinese Government Scholarships to 27,000 in 2013 with the aim of strengthening mutual understanding and friendship, develop cooperation and exchanges in fields of politics, economy, culture, education and trade between China and other countries as well as to boost national pride and its international image.

Scholarships are instrumental in profiling the higher education sector of the home country and to boost its international ambitions. International education has become an important economic sector in a number of countries, notably Australia and the UK. For many years the UK’s Chevening Scholarship Programme has brought many thousands of student to the UK with the clear objective to promote UK’s higher education institutions. In Australia higher education is the third largest source of export earnings in Australia, bringing in 14 billion Australian dollars in direct income and another 12 billion in value-added goods and services (total US$ 25.7 billion).

Scholarships may have a clear political purpose. From 1960 until the end of the Cold War almost 60,000 Arab students received education in the USSR. For the Soviets, educational cooperation aimed at detaching the Arab countries from the tutelage of the West and forming a Soviet-friendly scientific intelligentsia. Cuba has also been an important player in the provision of scholarships to other – mostly low-income – countries as part of Cuba's internationalist policies in building relationships not only with states, but also with social movements and inter-/non-governmental organisations on a global scale. The Australian Development Scholarships programme is an example of a more subtle, long term approach to regional influence. It does so through the selection of 'priority areas of study': e.g. Governance, Safety and Peace and Economic Management.

Capacity building and information sharing

Scholarships are about capacity building of individuals and organisations at home and abroad. Many of today’s industrialised or industrialising countries built up their technological capacities by deliberate targeting their own expertise through sending scholars abroad.

While Japan and South Korea are examples of the recent past, China, Brazil and Chile are nowadays the countries that send great numbers of people abroad on scholarships for the same reasons. But also industrialised countries stimulate students to study abroad through all sorts of support mechanisms in a drive to prepare their workforce for the international and globalising economy that is rapidly evolving.

On the other end of the spectrum, many countries fund scholarships within the framework of development cooperation. The objectives of these scholarships are to fill human capacity gaps in developing countries. Several of these schemes focus on mid-career professionals with the aim to link individual capacity building to organisational strengthening processes (e.g. the Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP), IDRC scholarships, SDC scholarships).

A recent development is that these programmes are increasingly being linked to bilateral country partnership strategies and country-based programmes. The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Denmark and the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) have adopted this approach.

A common feature of the schemes is the fact that the majority of scholarships are provided for study in the donor country. In the last decade some donors have started to 'untie' their scholarship programmes. Examples are the Norwegian NOMA programme and the IDRC that, since 2006, has been providing direct support to graduate students in Sub-Saharan Africa to study in their own countries or regions. However, with the current economic and political climate in Europe, where society is increasingly questioning how different aid programmes are benefiting the donor countries, untying scholarship aid will likely be slow.

Perpetuum mobile

Looking at the history of scholarships and their role in the present day world, it is interesting to observe that while many changes have taken place in the direction of international student mobility streams, scholarships have always been there and the motives to grant scholarships have only slightly changed.

The wish to internationalise the national education system is a more recent additional motive. There is no reason to believe that these motives will drastically change in the future nor that scholarships will disappear. The emerging economies sponsor scholarships programmes with the same vigour as the OECD countries have been doing, and for basically the same reasons.

What is likely to change is the physical aspect of the scholarship. Technological developments make it increasingly possible for students to study anywhere and at their own pace. There is no need to travel distances while students can learn from home. The exposure to a new environment and culture - claimed to be one of the major benefits of a study abroad - may well be accomplished through shorter visits.

The text of this blog also appears in a slightly different form as Policy Brief on the Norrag News website.