Thailand continues One-District-One-Scholarship Programme
Recently the Thai government approved the fourth round of the One-District-One-Scholarship (ODOS) programme for 2013-2014. A total of 1,856 scholarships will be awarded, which is twice as many as last year. The government has approved a budget of 14,000 million baht (about € 350 million) to be spent over the next seven years.
The continuation of the ODOS programme is a great opportunity for excellent Thai students from every district of the country to go abroad to study for their bachelor’s degree.
Two categories of students
This year the scholarships are open to two categories of students:
- Excellent students who come from a lower-income family, meaning the parents earn less than 200,000 baht per year (about € 5,000) collectively. For this category there is one scholarship per district, which is 928 scholarships in total. Scholarship recipients are required to study at a university in a country where English is not the official language. The government has listed 35 eligible countries, including the Netherlands.
- Other excellent students, from any family regardless of income: again one scholarship per district. The condition for this category is that the scholarship recipients will have to study in a field for which there is a demand on the Thai labour market, which is especially sciences and technology.
Requirements for institutions
This year, any Dutch higher education institution that aims to recruit Thai students through the ODOS scholarship programme, must offer:
- a flexible foundation year;
- bachelor’s programmes in English in various fields;
- efficient admission and visa procedures.
How many Thai students come to the Netherlands through the fourth ODOS batch depends on the capacity of Dutch higher education institutions and also on how well the institutions cooperate with each other, especially with respect to offering foundation courses.
Nuffic Neso Thailand’s role
In 2012-2013 the Netherlands received 59 students from the third ODOS batch. After the students had indicated their university preference, Nuffic Neso Thailand helped the government to place students at the Dutch institution.
Dutch higher education institutions interested in participating in the new round of the ODOS scholarship programme are invited to contact Nuffic Neso Thailand at info@nesothailand.org.