The Australian Government will provide 51 masters scholarship for Bhutan under its development awards scholarship for the year 2015.
The Development Awards Scholarship was previously named AusAid scholarship. Compared to the past few years, this will be the highest number of scholarships granted to Bhutan.
Officials from the Australian High Commission in New Delhi said giving more scholarships to Bhutan is purely based on budgetary conveniences of the Australian government.
“Alumni are very important to Australian government. Building onto this programme, we want to see Association with Australia and with each other continue when you return home to Bhutan,” said the First Secretary of Australian High Commission in New Delhi, Ryan Thew. He was speaking at the launch event of Bhutan Australia Alumni Association yesterday.
Ryan Thew said the establishment will enable stronger ties between the two countries.
For this year’s intake, 46 Bhutanese were given scholarship as against year 44 last year.
The Australian government provides the scholarship under development awards scholarship for only masters’ programme to South Asian countries.
In case of Bhutan, the Royal Civil Service Commission and the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources deal with the Australian government on scholarship.
Of the total awards, 60 percent is given to the civil servants while 40 percent to corporate and private employees.
The records with the Australian government shows that close to 500 Bhutanese were Australian scholarships awardees including the Australia’s endeavor awards.
The Australian Government has been providing educational scholarships to since the Colombo plan period in 1950s.