The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan is one in which scholarships and fellowships is given to citizens of other Commonwealth countries by Commonwealth governments and it is an international programme .It was started in 1959 at the first Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) held in Oxford, UK. Since then, more than twenty countries and near about 25,000 persons got this award.
The CSFP is not managed by central body. As the participation base is the mutual planning between home and host countries, National nominating agency of each country is responsible for advertising awards applicable to their own country and making nominations to host countries.
The biggest donor of this plan is United Kingdom and it is managed by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom a Non-Departmental Public Body and funded by the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
UK provides:
- Award for postgraduate study
- In developing country universities provide Academic Fellowships for staff.
- For PhD students Split-site Scholarships to spend up to one year in the UK
- In developing countries Professional Fellowships for mid-career professionals
- To study Master's degree courses Distance Learning Scholarships for developing country students
Usually these awards were given for the masters program as well as the doctorates and taught courses. There are some exceptions in few countries mainly in the UK providing Fellowships is to give a chance to modernize the skills in developing countries. Mutually home and host countries choose the candidate. When a country decides to offer awards, this is notified to those countries whose citizens will be eligible. Then those countries advertise the awards and nominate required number. On receiving the nominations host country choose the final recipients.
The participation of each country is organized by a national nominating agency and they advertise awards applicable to their own country and making nominations to host countries. In their own country the applicant should apply to the nominating agency. Mostly agency is selected by government agencies yet the functions are filled by other bodies, such as individual universities or their representative in the case of some award categories. So at the 14th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in November 2000 decision taken that some countries will accept nominations from a wider range of sources in future years, whilst retaining existing agencies as the main channel.
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