China unveils scholarship programme for Zimbabwean students

CHINA has unveiled a scholarship programme that will benefit 33 scholars drawn from three of the country's public universities to study in the Asian country.

This comes after Zimbabwe and China upgraded their "all-weather friendship" to a "comprehensive strategic partnership".

The China-Zimbabwe Scholarship Programme will benefit 33 outstanding students from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), Midlands State University (MSU) and National University of Science and Technology (Nust) to study at various learning institutions in China.

Held under the aegis of the Culture Exchange and Research Center (Caecerc) and the Chinese embassy, the initiative will benefit Zimbabwe's excelling, but underprivileged students.

Caecerc chairperson Ke Zhao told NewsDay that the programme was aimed at cementing relations between the two countries in the field of education.

"Caecerc and the Chinese embassy initiated this programme as a means to help intelligent, responsible but underprivileged students in the tertiary education sector," he said.

"Plans are already in place to obtain more funding from other Chinese and local companies in Zimbabwe so that it can cover many students and expand to other universities and tertiary institutions."

Last week, the programme was officially launched at the MSU and Nust and will be launched at the UZ at a later date.

Apart from that programme, six students from Zimbabwe are sent to the Nanjing University to undertake post-graduate studies in Arts.

The programme was broadened to cover other fields of study.

"The initiative is a brainchild of the Chinese embassy, which aims to give a helping hand to the education sector in Zimbabwe. The objectives of the initiative include awarding scholarships to excelling but underprivileged students," Zhao added.

"(We are implementing) the 20+20 Co-operation plan for Chinese and African institutions of higher education through empowering young academics."