NEC offers 200 grants via StuNed

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