NEC offers 200 grants via StuNed

YOGYAKARTA: Netherlands Education Center (NEC), a nonprofit, government-appointed institution representing tertiary education institutions in the Netherlands, is offering full scholarships for 200 eligible Indonesians via the StuNed (Studeren in Netherland) scholarship program for 2005.

Speaking at a press conference held here earlier this week, Director of NEC Ad de Leeuw said that the scholarships were basically open to any Indonesian for various fields of study.

However, preferences were given to lecturers, government employees, non-government staff and journalists, especially those from outside Java.

"We expect 50 percent of them to come from outside Java," said Leeuw, adding that so far the percentage of scholarship recipients from outside was relatively small, mostly due to a lack of communication ability in English.

To help increase the number of scholarship recipients from outside Java, therefore, NEC is also offering a conditional scholarship program, in which successful candidates are given an additional year in which to improve their English to meet the admission requirement.

It is also for the same reason that NEC is also running a road show to universities in 29 cities across the country, including in Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Papua, Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara, until Feb. 6 this year.

In addition, in a bid to broaden its coverage, NEC is also holding this week its annual Holland Education Fair in Semarang, Central Java; Yogyakarta; and Bandung, West Java.

Previously, the fair was held only in Jakarta and Surabaya, East Java.

NEC also reports that since 1998 the Dutch government has provided scholarships to a total of 1,529 Indonesian students, some 100 to 150 students of which received them via the StuNed program annually.

Apart from StuNed, NEC is also offering other scholarship programs including the Netherlands Fellowship Program (NFP), Delta Grant and the Huygens scholarship program. -- JP