The Inter University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), in collaboration with the World Bank and the People’s Republic of China, has announced a list of pre-selected candidates for the EASTRIP China TVET Scholarship for the academic year 2024/25.
Since its inception in the 2020/2021 academic year, the EASTRIP China TVET scholarship has supported selected TVET trainers from selected TVET institutes in East Africa to improve their academic and technical skills. To date, 57 students have been awarded scholarships to pursue advanced studies in China.
Some of the past winners of EASTRIP China TVET Scholarship at a function Guangzhou, China.
The latest selection cycle saw nominations from Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, with Ethiopia leading the nomination count. A total of 34 candidates were nominated, 19 for PhD programmes and 15 for Masters’ programmes.
Amongst the pre-selected are 10 candidates from Ethiopia, 6 from Tanzania, and 4 from Kenya with 6 female candidates in total pre-selected for the scholarship.
The selection criteria was based on the scholarship’s eligibility criteria, which emphasized the importance of aligning candidates’ academic pursuits with the EASTRIP priority areas.
Dr. Cosam Joseph, the EASTRIP Regional Project Coordinator at IUCEA, said: “The Scholarship is designed to support TVET institutions in East Africa to build capacity of their staff to deliver quality and relevant TVET programs that align with the needs of the labour market”. “Our selection criteria are aligned to EASTRIP priority areas to ensure that the scholarship contributes significantly to the socioeconomic development of the East African region,” Dr Cosam said.
The EASTRIP China TVET Scholarship Program underscores the importance of capacity building effort in improving the quality and relevance of TVET in East Africa.
By Godwin Bonge Muhwezi, Project Communication Officer for EASTRIP at IUCEA
