Japan taking 30 Bangladesh public servants for higher education

Japan has signed a grant assistance agreement of up to 433 million yen with Bangladesh to take civil servants for higher education at its universities.

The signing ceremony of “the Project for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS)” was held at the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.

Ambassador Hiroyasu Izumi and ERD Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam signed the exchange of notes.

JICA Chief Representative Takatoshi Nishikata signed the grant agreement for the project at the ceremony.

The embassy said 328 Bangladeshi officers have studied in Japan under the JDS scheme since 2002.

“In light of the strong expectation of the Bangladesh government to enlarge the scheme, the government of Japan has increased the annual number of Bangladesh JDS awardees significantly during the past few years.”

The yearly intake of 15 which stayed constant between 2010 and 2014 has doubled to 30 in 2016, making Bangladesh the second biggest among the 15 JDS participant countries.

This year’s 30 JDS fellows will train themselves in different graduate schools in Japan to pursue such disciplines as public administration, economic affairs, legal system and urban planning, public finance and investment policy.

In addition, the government of Japan has decided to open up the JDS scheme for PhD candidates from last fiscal year and three officers have started their maximum three-year doctoral course in the East Asian nation.

In this project, three more fellows will be expected to pursue PhD degrees in their respective fields.

It is expected that JDS fellows would play an “active” role after the completion of the programme in drawing up and implementing social and economic development policies, the embassy said.

JDS fellows are also expected to make “valuable contribution to furthering mutual understanding and deepen and broaden friendship between Japan and Bangladesh”, it added.