The Ministry of Education has recently approved the fourth round of the One-District-One-Scholarship (ODOS) programme for 2013-2014. A total of 1,856 scholarships, which is twice as many as last year, will be offered to students to study in the country and abroad.

According to the Ministry of Education, 928 out of the 1,856 scholarships will be awarded to students whose parents earn less than 200,000 baht a year (about £ 4,500). They will continue their studies for their bachelor’s degree in both Thailand and abroad. The remainder will be offered to students wishing to continue to study for the bachelor’s degree both here and abroad, with an emphasis on the field of science and technology, where Thailand faces a shortage of able personnel.

Apart from Thailand, the countries in which the students will be able to study include Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong (China), Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

This year the scholarships are open to two categories of students:

1. Excellent students who come from a lower-income family, meaning the parents earn less than 200,000 baht per year (about € 5,000) collectively. For this category there is one scholarship per district, which is 928 scholarships in total. Scholarship recipients are required to study at a university in a country where English is not the official language.
2. Other excellent students, from any family regardless of income: again one scholarship per district. The condition for this category is that the scholarship recipients will have to study in a field for which there is a demand on the Thai labour market, which is especially sciences and technology.

Now, the government has approved a budget of 14,000 million baht (about £ 315million) to be spent over the next seven years.