UK: Call for scholarship re-think

British vice-chancellors have called on the UK government to reverse a decision to cut funding for two major scholarship programmes which attracted students from Canada and Australia. During a debate in the House of Lords, Diana Warwick, Chief Executive of the vice-chancellors' organisation Universities UK, said the cuts would affect Britain's ability to attract highly talented students and the competitiveness of British universities in the global education market.

Last March, the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, announced a significant restructuring of the scholarship programmes. The cuts amount to a reduction of around £10 million a year and are focused in two areas:
*An end to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office contribution to the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan from 2009-10, which currently amounts to just over £2 million a year.
*A reduction in the Chevening Scholarship Programme from £27 million in 2007-08 to £18.9 million in 2008-09 and similar levels in 2009-10 and 2010-2011.

But Warwick said cutting educational links between Britain and the two countries seemed to contradict the government's goal of making Britain one of the most attractive destinations for international students through the Prime Minister's Initiative.

"Many scholarship students go on to be leaders in their fields and maintain invaluable links with our universities and the UK as a whole," she said. "This decision means they will study elsewhere which will be a real blow to the UK's reputation."

Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said the government was restructuring the scholarship programmes and focusing on the Chevening and Marshall schemes.
"While the FCO's support for Commonwealth scholarships is ending, the government's overall contribution is increasing through funding from the Department for International Development," Malloch-Brown said.

"Funding overall will not decrease but it will be deployed away from old Commonwealth to new Commonwealth countries in the hope that other sources of funding will be available to make up the difference."
diane.spencer@uw-news.com