Hong Kong signs MOU with Myanmar on education co-operation and launches Belt and Road Scholarship (Myanmar)

     The Education Bureau (EDB) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region today (October 26) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Education of Myanmar on education co-operation to enhance education collaboration between the two places. The MOU was signed by the Under Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, and the Deputy Minister of Education of Myanmar, Mr Win Maw Tun, by means of exchange of documents.
 
     The MOU provides a framework to facilitate strategic collaboration between the education communities of Hong Kong and Myanmar. It covers initiatives including the provision of scholarships for students; exchange of expertise and experience; exchange of educational literature, teaching aids and demonstration materials; and exchanges of scholars, teachers, experts, students and other education personnel. The main text of the MOU is available on the EDB website (www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/postsecondary/policy-doc/index.html).
 
     The EDB also announced today the launch of the Belt and Road Scholarship (Myanmar) with a view to attracting outstanding students from Myanmar to pursue undergraduate studies in Hong Kong from the 2019/20 academic year. Under the scholarship scheme, up to 10 scholarships will be offered annually to students from Myanmar who are enrolled in first-year undergraduate programmes of publicly funded institutions in Hong Kong. All awardees will receive scholarships to cover the full tuition fees of relevant programmes annually. The scholarships for the first 10 awardees will be supported by donations from the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce (CGCC) and CGCC (Foundation) Limited.
      
     "Signing the MOU with Myanmar and launching a new Belt and Road Scholarship can further internationalise the Hong Kong's higher education sector and enrich our pool of talents with international perspectives, with a view to contributing to the future development of Hong Kong," Dr Choi said.
 
     To internationalise and diversify the Hong Kong higher education sector, and groom talents with global vision and an international network to enhance human capital, the EDB launched the Belt and Road Scholarship (Indonesia) in the 2016/17 academic year. The scholarship scheme was expanded to cover Malaysia and Thailand in the 2017/18 academic year. At the same time, the scholarship awardees can act as ambassadors to strengthen exchange and people-to-people bonds between Hong Kong and these places.