Japan gives Yen 265Mn for Sri Lanka human resources development scholarships

Jun 26, 2018 (LBO) - The Government of Japan has agreed to offer a grant assistance of 265 million Yen (approximately 374 million rupees) to provide human resources development scholarships for the Sri Lankan public sector. The Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resources Development Scholarship (JDS) Programme was introduced in Sri Lanka in 2010 by the Government of Japan in order to provide opportunities to the executive level public sector officials to undergo Master Degree Programmes in prominent universities in Japan. The first framework (2010-2013) and the second framework (2014-2017) of this programme were completed in 2013 and 2017 respectively. Accordingly, opportunities have been provided to 135 officials under this programme (15 per year), In response to the request made by the Government of Sri Lanka, the Government of Japan has agreed to continue this programme for further period of four years and accordingly, the third framework (2018 – 2021) was started in 2018 to provide 15 scholarships annually to undergo master degree programmes in Japan. After considering the necessity of further career development of JDS fellows, the Government of Japan has agreed to offer PhD programmes at most two slots per batch. The selection process of the first batch of the third framework has already been completed and the selected officials are scheduled to commence their studies in September 2018.