Japan offers scholarship for two Qatari nationals

Source: Gulf Times
Japan’s ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology will award scholarships to two Qatari nationals in 2009 as in the previous years.

Japanese embassy’s Deputy Mission and Counsellor Ryoji Iwama said that Qatari nationals, wishing to study in Japanese universities for periods ranging from two to five years could avail of the scholarship.

Of the two scholarships, one is for under-graduate students and the other for research students. The undergraduate students should have completed 17 years and should be below 21 years (as on April 1, 2010) to be eligible for the scholarship and the research student should be under 35 years (as on April 1, 2010).

The embassy official said candidates from Qatar would be selected by a Joint Selection Committee comprising officials from the Supreme Education Council, (SEC) Qatar University and the Japanese embassy through the screening of documents, written exam and interview.

The embassy spokesman said Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda had proclaimed a vision last year to effect a rise in the number of international students in Japan to 300,000 by 2020.

Director of Scholarship office of the SEC’s Higher Education Office Hissa Yousef al-Ali and associate professor head of materials technology at the Qatar University’s research division Dr Mariam Ali al-Ma’adeed would be among the members of the committee for the scholarship 2010, according to Iwama.

Speaking later at the meeting, Hissa al-Ali said Qatar students had availed of the Japanese scholarship in the last one decade at intervals and an official at Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) Hamad Saleh al-Nesef has already won the scholarship for 2009 and is pursuing studies as a researcher student.

She recalled that two other Qatari students underwent programmes at Japanese universities, in the last 10 years. They were Abdullah Ziyara, a teacher trainee student and research student Abdulrahman al-Hajri.
Later, Japanese embassy’s cultural attaché Masashi Kimura said the embassy officials in co-operation with local government officials had visited some Qatar schools on an awareness creation mission on the educational opportunities in Japan.