Emirati students missing out on opportunity for American scholarship

ABU DHABI // Emirati students may be missing out on the opportunity for a scholarship to study for a masters degree in the United States.

As of 2014, only 10 Emirati students had entered the Fulbright Foreign Student Programme. Of GCC countries, only Qatar, with one student, and Kuwait, with eight, have had fewer graduate students enter the programme in the ­period from 1949 to 2014.

By contrast, Oman had 154 students accepted by the scholarship during the same period, followed by Bahrain with 107, and Saudi Arabia with 40.

The Fulbright Foreign Student Programme was started by the US government in 1946 to promote cross-cultural relations through international education exchange.

“The goal of the programme is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries,” said Mohini Madgavkar, cultural ­affairs ­officer at the US embassy in Abu Dhabi. “When we work on complex problems together and get to know each other as individuals, we have a chance to go beyond things that separate people, go beyond cultural differences and get to know each other in a more tangible and more real way and in a way that really helps us to get to that goal of mutual understanding.”

In the UAE, the programme is administered on behalf of the US embassy by Amideast, a non-profit international education company. The first batch of Emiratis did not begin entering the programme until 2007, said Rula Dajani, country director for Amideast.

“While many expatriates in the UAE will recognise the Fulbright name, since programmes in their home countries have been long established, the Fulbright name is still quite new and not widely recognised among the Emirati population,” Ms Dajani said.

Amideast was working on increasing its profile by visiting university campuses, networking with higher education staff and faculty, arranging public information sessions and increasing its web and social media presence.

“It is important to increase awareness throughout the Emirati population so the programme can recruit the best candidates and bring the UAE into the fold in its work towards increasing and improving cross-cultural connections and understanding worldwide,” she said.

The programme is open to Emiratis with a bachelors degree from an accredited university. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview.

Each year, about 4,000 foreign students from more than 155 countries receive Fulbright Foreign Student scholarships.

Three Emiratis will begin study in the United States in the 2016-2017 academic year.

The scholarship winners include a Zayed University graduate who will study linguistic anthropology at Rutgers University; a New York University Abu Dhabi graduate who will study theatre at Towson University; and an American University of Sharjah graduate who will enter the University of Rochester to study marketing analytics.