Government student support programmes and scholarships are one of the main ways of helping international students meet the costs of their study in the UK. Thanks to numerous overseas governments support programmes, over 17,000 international students on a global scale were able to enrol in various UK institutions in the year of 2012/2013. This number is likely to increase in the coming years as such dynamic markets as Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkey introduce and further develop a number of initiatives helping their graduates to study abroad.

A major breakthrough came last year, when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a long-awaited decree providing state funding for 1,000 graduates to study overseas every year for the next three years. Around 4.5 billion roubles (£ 69 million) will be allocated to the Global Education Programme with scholarships distribution scheduled to start later this year. While being a fairly new initiative for Russia, similar programmes have long existed in other oil-rich countries of the post-soviet region, namely Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

Kazakhstan has set the tone in 1993 by introducing the “Bolashak” international scholarship with nearly 13 million tenges (£44,455) allocated for the programme annually. Since 1993 a total of 7,611 “Boloshak” scholarships have been awarded, where the majority of scholarship candidates have applied to study in the UK (159 applicants out of 216).

Azerbaijan followed in 2006 by establishing State Programme for study of Azerbaijani youth abroad for 2007-2015, managed by the Ministry of Education, as well as the SOCAR’s Study Abroad Scholarship Programme, which funded a total of 235 students, 134 of which chose the UK as their study destination.

A large variety of student support schemes are also available in Turkey, where students can choose from Chevening, Erasmus, programs offered by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) as well as Mevlana Exchange Programme initiated by the Council of Higher Education. Turkey has been championing education abroad support schemes since 1969, when TEV foundation established by 205 benefactors started issuing scholarships to support the development of senior executives and specialists. To answer an overwhelming demand for university faculty, Turkey’s Ministry of National Education (MoNE) has also developed a scholarship program to sponsor graduate study abroad.

The abovementioned student support programmes present invaluable recruitment opportunities for the UK institutions but can at times be hard to navigate without local expertise and support. To assist the UK education providers British Council- SIEM will be gathering local experts at the upcoming SIEM Conference 2014 to talk about latest updates on the existing scholarship schemes available to students in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey.