Panel description: Crossborder cooperation and scholarship policy

Teresa Anderson
Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

Ann Floyd
Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

Jonathan Jenkins
Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

Hilary Perraton
Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

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     Last modified: October 13, 2006
     Presentation date: 11/02/2006 10:00 AM in NT Trelawny
     (View Schedule)

Abstract
Since 2002 the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom has funded nearly 520 students in developing Commonwealth countries on distance-learning degree programmes. Students’ courses of study include agricultural development, fisheries, health, education, and computer studies. Students’ countries of origin include Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The Commission’s programme has three purposes: to explore the possibilities of funding virtual student mobility alongside conventional student mobility; to increase the production of graduates in areas relating to national priorities and millennium development goals; to support developing-country universities through partnership arrangements which facilitate their offering locally based programmes.

The Commission’s paper also explores:
different models of partnerships;
the advantages and drawbacks of our scheme for its students, including evidence on gender;
the use of this mode of cooperation as a means of supporting institutional development;
technology and the limitations of access to it.

Our session will be of interest to anyone concerned with higher education, with educational collaboration across frontiers, and with ways of funding distance-learning students. Its aims include identifying good practice and exploring ways of widening scholarship opportunities through involving other agencies. The session will be planned to allow ample discussion and interaction.