Post-secondary scholarships for students from developing countries: establishing a global baseline

With the goal of informing progress towards Sustainable Development Goal target 4.b which focuses on the provision of global scholarships for students from the developing world, this article analyses the current state of global data on scholarships available at the tertiary level for individuals from developing countries. In addition to assessing the status of and gaps in the data, the analysis explores the feasibility of creating a baseline against which future progress towards target 4.b can be monitored at the global level. It reviews a broad range of scholarship programmes that are sponsored by government institutions, non-profit organisations, and corporations in order to inform the analysis, identify challenges, and propose solutions. Data gaps are especially apparent with regard to the national origins and socio-demographic characteristics of scholarship recipients. Despite the severe limitation of the data, a tentative baseline against which the progress of target 4.b can be measured is proposed. This baseline estimates that currently there are approximately 22,487 tertiary students from the developing world who are receiving scholarships from developed and developing countries. This figure accounts for just under 1 per cent of the 2.5 million students from the developing world who are globally mobile. In addition to providing a framework for organising and monitoring global scholarship programmes, the article provides recommendations for the steps that can be put in place in order to ensure better data collection on the provision of scholarships for students from the developing world.

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