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LOS BAÑOS, Laguna: The government-hosted Southeast Asian Ministers
of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and
Research in Agriculture (Seameo-Searca) based here is now inviting
applicants to its scholarship program starting school year 2009 to
2010.
The Searca scholarship program is open to
Filipinos, as well as nationals of the 10 other member-countries of
Seameo, the center’s mother organization. Seameo is an
intergovernmental treaty organization founded in 1965 to foster
cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of
education, science and culture.
The Seameo-Searca study grants will enable
qualifiers to pursue their PhD and MS degrees in agriculture and
related fields such as agro-industrial technology and engineering,
economics, biochemistry, statistics, biological and social sciences,
forestry, and fisheries.
In the case of the Filipinos, the program is
open to faculty and research staff members of state colleges and
universities and technical staff workers of government agencies.
The scholars may study in selected universities
in Southeast Asia, including the University of the Philippines Los
Baños (UPLB), UP Diliman, and UP Visayas, which have institutional
agreements with Searca.
Filipino applicants should submit their
applications to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chair in
Manila. CHED then submits the list of applicants accompanied by the
complete set of requirements to Searca not later than July 30, 2008.
Applicants should check with CHED for the
deadline of applicants’ submission set by the commission.
Searca, currently headed by Director Arsenio M.
Balisacan, a UP Diliman professor in economics, launched its
graduate study program in school year 1968 to 1969 to produce highly
trained manpower in agriculture and related fields to help
accelerate Southeast Asia’s development process.
As of the end of school year 2006 to 2007, the
program had produced 1,000 fellows (graduates), 425 of whom had
earned their PhD and 575 their MS, reported Dr. Balisacan, himself a
product of the scholarship program who once served as Agriculture
undersecretary.
The Philippines has the most number of Searca
fellows—140 PhD and 153 MS, followed by Thailand (269), Indonesia
(251), Vietnam (71), Malaysia (50), Cambodia (23), Myanmar (15), Lao
People’s Democratic Republic (12), Timor-Leste (6), Singapore (4),
and Brunei Darussalam (1).
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