BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

CITIZENS or permanent residents of Brunei who are interested in pursuing their postgraduate studies in China may now apply for MOFCOM Scholarship to the Economic and Commercial Counselor’s Office (ECCO) at the country’s embassy in the Sultanate before June 15.

The scholarship, which is set up by the China’s Ministry of Commerce, offers two-year to three-year master’s programmes and three-year to four-year PhD programmes.

The scholarship will cover tuition waiver, on-campus accommodation, medical insurance and a round-trip international air tickets as well as monthly stipend of 3,000 RMB (BND$653) for a master student and 3,500 RMB (BND$762) for a PhD student.

A statement from the embassy yesterday said that the scholarship aims to further strengthen the communication and cooperation between China and other countries as well as to help them develop talents.

Starting from 2015, MOFCOM Scholarship mainly sponsors the young and middle-aged talents from recipient countries to pursue their postgraduate degrees in China and entrusts China Scholarship Council (CSC) to administer the Scholarship, the statement said.

“Scholarship winners must register for English-taught programmes if such programmes are available and when only Chinese-taught programme is available, students should take Chinese language training courses for one to two years before moving on to their study,” it said.

To be eligible for the scholarship, applicants must possess a bachelor’s degree when applying for a master’s programme, and a master’s degree when applying for doctoral programme.

Applicants must also be under 45 years old when applying for the scholarship and have sufficient English or Chinese proficiency which meets the academic requirements of the programme.

Application form for MOFCOM Scholarship is available online at www.csc.edu.cn/laihua or www.campuschina.org.

All documents required should be sent to the ECCO of the Chinese Embassy here before June 15 and no documents will be returned regardless of the scholarship result.

Scholarship winners will get the admission package from ECCO by the end of August this year and must register at the host university before the deadline around September.

For more information, visit the ECCO website at http://bn2.mofcom.gov.cn/.

The Brunei Times