Educating for integration

The Macau Foundation is preparing two projects linked to the One Road, One Belt (OBOR) initiative, according to information provided to Business Daily by Wu Zhiliang, the foundation’s President.
One of the projects is a scholarship programme open to students from Macau and from countries of the OBOR, which the foundation officially launched on Sunday.
The second project is an international conference that the foundation is co-organizing – to be held from June 7 to 9 in Macau – which Wu says “will count with the participation of speakers from China, Portugal, Brazil, Australia, and United States.”
According to further information provided by an employee speaking on behalf of the Macau Foundation yesterday, the other two organizers for the conference, which is themed the ‘One Belt, One Road policy and the development of Macao,’ are the Policy Research Office of the Macau SAR Government, and the Grand Thought Think Tank, a local organization.
The foundation spokesperson explained that invited guests come from both the academic and the business sector, adding that guests from Indonesia are also expected to attend.
Wu stated that he did not take part in the OBOR Forum held in Beijing in mid-May, and therefore he could not yet provide more information on the current initiatives linked to OBOR involving the institution he spearheads.

Scholarship programme
According to information released by the Macau Foundation, the first phase of the OBOR scholarship programme is open to students from Macau, Guangdong, and Fujian for the 2017-2018 academic year. Students can apply in two different modalities, according to the rules pursuant to the grant.
Permanent residents of Macau can apply for the programme to pursue undergraduate studies in a higher education institutions abroad in Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Students from Guangdong and Fujian, already enrolled in a local higher education establishment, can apply for the scholarship to pursue graduate studies (at Master’s degree level) in the same countries listed above, as well as in Portugal.
A total of 20 scholarships will be attributed, ten for Macau residents, and ten for residents from Guangdong and Fujian combined.
The second type of scholarship grant, open to students from OBOR countries willing to study in Macau, will be launched at a later stage.
In total, the scholarship programme is approved to run for an initial duration of five years and will cover a total of 150 grants, ranging from MOP60,000 to MOP80,000 depending on the target institution.