Hi my name's simon watson i'm the senior manager of global mobility programs at UTS.
Welcome to the session about New Colombo plan scholarships.
Today I'm going to talk a little bit about what the scholarship is, what the new colombo
plan is and help you to decide if you might qualify to be a new colombo plan scholar.
Firstly what is the new colombo plan. You may or may not know that there was an original colombo
plan and this worked from the 1950s to the 1980s. It was an initiative of several governments to
build capacity across the new and emerging Asian nations in our region and it was very
very well received. Many students came to study in Australia, developed lifelong connections
with Australia and as a result Australia has a great reputation across the Asian region.
The new Colombo plan launched by the Australian government in 2014 was an initiative to try and
kind of, I suppose, reverse that process to create a soft power engagement with the region
and allow people to go to have an experience of living and studying in the indo-pacific
and to bring that experience back to themselves and for the betterment of the country.
So what are the aims of the new columbo plan. As I mentioned the Australian government
really wants to encourage all students in their bachelor's degree to engage deeply
with countries in our region. The program sends students for a range of experiences which create
real person-to-person linkages and by having and studying, connecting, learning a local language
or possibly working in a company you'll have the opportunity to be immersed and to develop
all kinds of connections which will serve you really well into your future.
You'll understand and be able to work with colleagues from across our region.
By creating this possibility it serves Australia's future really well.
This fits very closely with the aims at UTS.
As you may know at UTS we want all students to think global. Our UTS model of learning is
practical and engaged and encourages students to gain global experience during their degree.
We even want a target of, we even have a target of 40%
of our bachelor's students with an international experience in their degree
so by having NCP funding this opportunity fits perfectly alongside our own goals and aspirations
and we hope and we think this offers you an amazing opportunity to study in our region.
So what is the program. It has two main parts; the new colombo plan scholarship which i'll be
talking about mainly today and new colombo plan mobility grants. The mobility grants
UTS applies for to support our global exchange and short programs so I won't be going into too much
detail about the mobility grants today but take a look at our Think Global page for financial
support to find out about these options. If you decide a new colombo plan scholarship is not
for you there's heaps of funding to enable you to think global in our NCP focused countries.
UTS has had really strong success in selecting new colombo plan scholars so that's what i want
to talk to you about today. Since 2014 we've had 30 outstanding candidates selected all leaders
of the future they're selected not only by UTS but by DFAT for their outstanding abilities,
their very different strengths and interests. The selected students have been included students from
all faculties engineering IT, science, health, law, business, FASS, design and architecture
so and of course also from our UTS bachelor of international studies degree.
So students have come from a range of very different backgrounds and have different
interests and goals but all really demonstrated a strong passion to study in the region to really
make connections and to get deeply integrated through an internship and work placements.
Our students so far have studied and worked on the scholarship in places as diverse as Vietnam,
Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, the people's republic of China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal.
If you want to look at some of their stories go back to our website which is at uts.edu.edu/ncp
and you can find out the stories of a
different NCP scholars and why they had such a life-changing experience.
So what countries can you go to. There's really a world of choices.
Over 40 countries and territories are covered
in the new colombo plan scholarship. We generally recommend that you choose a study destination
where UTS has an active exchange program. That makes it really easy to plan and to sort out
academic credit and to ensure that you can be placed on an exchange into those places.
If you look at this list those countries are highlighted in bold and with a little asterisk.
UTS also has a number of other connections which could be leveraged
to go to if you wanted to potentially reach out
say to somewhere like Fiji or New Caledonia for example but this option is only for the intrepid.
You need to have electives in your degree and to be incredibly organized to make this happen.
I'll talk a little bit further about this in the second video. So our tip for you would be
to keep to our exchange partnerships for really arranging a straightforward option. So what is
the scholarship cover you may ask. Well we say it's up to $69,000 because it's unlikely you'll
receive the full amount but to clarify there will be a travel allowance of $2500, an establishment
allowance and a monthly stipend which will pay for all of your expenses. If you're wanting to
learn a language which is strongly encouraged you can receive up to six months worth of language
tuition costs of between fifteen hundred and up to ten thousand dollars. You'll get travel insurance
you will have a dedicated case manager for the duration of the program we'll support
you through the experience. There's a range of pre-departure briefings, health and travel
insurance and advice and all kinds of things related to accommodation and allowances. You'll
have assistance with setting up your internship or mentorship. You'll receive a certificate of
completion and you'll have a fellows allowance if you're selected as an NCP scholar fellow.
In total you can have up to 19 months abroad and that may include up to one year of
academic tuition, if you want to study overseas for up to a year. In practice most students who
go on the program study for six months and then intern for several months after that.
So as i just mentioned what do you do on the program. So first is your study component and this
is part of the process that we support you with at UTS. You'll need to apply for UTS global exchange,
really important that you'll need to apply for UTS global exchange so don't forget to do that
and you should go into the careerhub workflow to find out how to apply for global exchange.
You could also be in the bachelor of international studies degree going to
china or japan in which case you don't need to apply for that it's already part of your degree.
The second part of the program which is compulsory, is an internship experience.
This must be taken after your study has started and must be at least three months in duration.
I'll talk a little bit more about the internship in the second video
but basically you'll be required to work and really get deeply engaged with the country that
you're going to or potentially a different country adjacent. Additionally as i mentioned before if
you want to take local language studies it's very strongly encouraged earlier in your scholarship
so you can get the best out of your experience and really make those lifelong connections. The
language study will not be for academic credit. So it's a pretty exciting offer it's it's very
prestigious there's only very few students selected so we think if you're a high achiever
it would be really great for you to consider applying. So what are the eligibility criteria,
so you're thinking great i really want to apply well there's some key things. It's only open to
Australian citizens and just a little trick for young players please don't be a dual citizen
of the host country that you're going to. You need to be enrolled at an Australian university
between the age of 18 and 28 as of january 1st of the year that you're applying, you need to be
doing a bachelor's or bachelor's honor and have completed at least one year of your studies,
you need to have a WAM, a weighted average mark, of seventy percent but just as a tip on
average most of the scholars selected have over eighty percent as an average grade.
Also in addition to being a strong academic performer you'll need to demonstrate these three
criteria in red. They're really looking for people who demonstrate leadership qualities and have
really engaged with a community. Now engagement with the community can be mean different things
to different people so that might be you're a member of scouts, you work for the RFS,
you work in your own cultural community, any kind of thing so but really you've
demonstrated leadership and you've been engaged with a community in doing that.
You need to demonstrate qualities of adaptability and resilience and you need to understand and have
a commitment to the new colombo plans aims. You need to be able to study at least one session
overseas, you need to be able to demonstrate that you have an affiliation with a host institution,
so in the case of UTS if you apply to one of our exchange partners we have an affiliation with
those universities. You can't be receiving any other scholarships or had a scholarship before.
There are some other bonus criteria they're really looking to include students who have
diverse backgrounds, so if you think you might be one of these category students then you'll
get some I suppose some extra points, so maybe you come from a non-english speaking family,
maybe you're the first in your family to go to university, maybe you're a woman in engineering
or something similar to that those kinds of diversity criteria count a little extra.
You should be interested in learning the language of the place that you're going to
and interested in different locations of study, so in particular if you're interested in going
to pacific institution maybe in Fiji or New Caledonia it might also score you a few extra
points. One of the other things you'll need to do is to have a really strong idea about what
you want to do for your internship. I'll explain a little bit more about that in
the second video you don't need to have your internship organized at point of application
but really to think about what you want to do and how that fits in with where you want to study.
And just to wind up a little bit deeper overview of the selection criteria. So academic excellence
is 25 of the selection criteria, you'll see that it will also look at ungraded academic
achievements maybe you've won a prize or maybe you've done something in your faculty such as a
law student being on the Brennan program so other things that demonstrate your communication skills
and your higher order cognitive and critical thinking skills.
Please note high school academic achievement achievements will not be considered.
Secondly leadership in the community. You need to demonstrate that you've been engaged with the
community in some way whether it's as a volunteer doing not perform not-for-profit activities
or you know done something that's really made you stand out in a community or an area of interest.
This can also include activities at the university so maybe you've been the head
of a club or a society and it aligns with what you're studying that's also fine.
The third criteria is adaptability and resilience. They want to make sure that students going abroad
are going to be able to cope with living away from home and so you need to have
some kind of evidence of your ability to adapt and thrive in a different environment
or that you've faced a serious challenge and come out of it feeling much stronger.
The final criteria is ability to contribute to the goals. This is sometimes a little bit
harder to conceptualize in an application but think about how sending you abroad
would add to the goals of the new colombo plan ,making connections, maybe starting up a business,
learning a language, all those kinds of things that are going to make you stand
out and build a bridge between Australia and the country that you're planning to go to.
As I mentioned applicants with diversity backgrounds will really be positively viewed.
There's a couple of other little bits and pieces that you need to do, you will need to have a
federal police check, usually by the middle of July and you need to be able to comply with the
requirements of the student visa for the host country you're going to sometimes can be a bit
tricky so if you think there might be something that comes up in that then feel free to you
know investigate what the visa situation is for the host country you're going to.
You must commence your studies in the year of the grant that you're awarded.
So that's that's the main criteria. So are you ready for a prestigious life-changing experience
studying and working abroad and really do you think you are a leader and has what it takes.
So if you think you're really really interested then maybe you should move to the next video
'Tips to a successful New Colombo scholarship application' you can also follow through the
the steps in the NCP scholarship careerhub after you've watched that video. Have a further read of
the DFAT site or check out our own UTS site. I hope that you're excited about this opportunity
and if you have any any further questions feel free to contact me, Simon Watson, at our general
email account studyabroad.exchange@uts.edu.au thank you very much and just go ahead and apply!