Commonwealth Scholarships Success

The Development Policy and Practice (DPP) group has once again been successful in its bid to secure funding from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. This year, a further ten students from Uganda and Kenya will be supported to study on the MSc in Development Management.

The scholarships are funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) from the UKAID budget and well over 100 students – for the most part working in both local and international NGOs, but also in public and private sector development agencies – have benefited from the scholarships since 2006, the year of DPP’s first successful bid.

The bid by the organisers of the MSc in Environmental Management has also been successful, resulting in an additional ten scholarships.

The Open University has strong links with Uganda and Kenya and both bids rested on long-term partnerships with local agencies. DPP work closely with the Kulika Educational Trust in Uganda (a charitable trust specialising in the provision of educational scholarships for students in East Africa) while their colleagues in Environmental Management work with the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in Kenya.

The scholarships make an important contribution to international development in East Africa, as the feedback from a previous student demonstrates:

"Obtaining an MSc in Development Management opens higher positions in development as I am able to compete favourably with peers in the field. My employer values me and they have committed to take me on as a Programme Manager to replace an expat who is leaving."