Bengaluru:
Here’s some good news for Indian students aspiring to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in 55 universities of UK.
Launching the Great Britain Scholarships (GBS) on Monday, British Council (BC) announced that this year it’ll offer 600 scholarships for Indian students, a record number offered to students of any country. The scholarships are worth more than three million pounds.
Apart from GBS, the 600 scholarships include two other types — Commonwealth and Chevening scholarships, offered for a range of subjects like engineering, law and business, art and design. In the last two years, the BC offered over 750 scholarships to Indian students.
Bharat Joshi, deputy high commissioner of British Deputy High Commission, Chennai, said: “In 2010, we funded 1 million pounds for research, conducted jointly by UK and Indian institutions. This year, it has been increased to 1.5 million pounds.” “Some scholarships are fully funded, others are partially,” he added.
Education ties between India and UK isn’t a one-way traffic, though. British Council also launched another programme titled Generation UK, as part of which it aims to bring 25,000 UK students to India over the next five years. British students will work as teaching assistants in Indian schools, enjoy work placements and internships in Indian businesses, and learn about India through cultural courses.
Mei-Kwei Barker, director, BC (South India), said British students will arrive in India this summer and that New Delhi will be the focal point for this new initiative. “Through this initiative, BC aims to train a generation of UK graduates which understands India to further links between the two countries,” she added.
SCHOLARSHIPS ON OFFER
* Great Britain Scholarships – India 2015: This is for India students planning to pursue UG and PG courses in UK universities. Students who obtain this scholarship for one-year programmes across UK varsities will be fully funded
* Commonwealth Scholarships: This is offered to students of developing Commonwealth countries to pursue PG, Ph.D and split-site PhD in UK varsities, and is funded by the Department for International Development, UK
* Chevening Scholarship: British Council is increasing investments by fourfolds in this flagship programme in India, making it the world’s largest. While in 2013-14, it invested 0.6 million pounds, this year it plans to pump in 2.4 million pounds into these fully-funded scholarships
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Bengaluru / TNN / February 10th, 2015