Applications now open for the 3rd round of the TOBITATE! Ryugaku Japan scholarship for university students

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT), began accepting applications for the 3rd round of the TOBITATE! Ryugaku Japan scholarship for university students on the 29th January. The scholarship will be available for 300 students in total.

“Tobitate Ryugaku Japan” （”トビタテ! 留学Japan” in Japanese） is a major media campaign by MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan) to encourage Japanese university and senior high school students to study abroad as part of a strategy to double the number of students studying overseas by 2020. The government has set a clear target of doubling the number of students with study abroad experience from the current 60,000 to 120,000 for university students, and 30,000 to 60,000 for senior high school students.

MEXT has launched a special scholarship programme, with a budget of JPY8.8 billion (50 million GBP) matched by JPY20 billion (116 million GBP) worth of funding from the corporate sector in 2014. The scholarship aims to fund 10,000 Japanese students by 2020. The official English name of the scholarship programme in line with this campaign is: “Japan Public-Private Partnership Student Study Abroad Program TOBITATE! Young Ambassador Programme”

323 students were selected in the first round of applications and, while MEXT has not published the successful students’ study destinations, it was reported that the UK attracted the second largest number of students. 256 students were selected for the 2nd round. Among those 256 students, 102 are scheduled to go to Europe (16 countries in total).

As with the 2nd round, the 3rd round of the scholarship programme will recruit 300 students for 4 categories. For the details of each category, please see below:

http://www.britishcouncil.or.jp/data/TOBITATE-Ryugaku-Scholarship-2015_…　

Analysis:

• Each applicant is expected to exhibit an individual vision and create a study abroad plan to achieve this. Study plans often consist of various destinations and courses. Summer programmes are a particularly popular option. For this reason, this scholarship programme may contribute to the further growth of the market for short-term study abroad programmes targeted at university students, which is a prominent feature of the study abroad market in Japan.

• With regards to courses at degree level, this scholarship programme will be particularly relevant to institutions ranked within the top 100 of the world university rankings (QS, THE, ARWU).