OK! so you wish to study abroad, and do not have the fortunes to pursue your dreams? Well, it’s not the end of the world for you. When there is a will, there is a way and the way is to get scholarships.
Universities around the world are waiting for scholars to do research but they are not getting enough suitable candidates, reason being the suitable candidates do not have the information how to get there.
The focus of this article is on getting scholarships in East Asian countries, i.e. Japan, Korea, China, Thailand and Singapore. Countries like Japan and Korea are developing fast and investing a lot in the education sector. Their industries are fully supporting the academia, and it’s very easy to get a scholarship, only if you are persistent.
So let’s go directly to the tricks of the trade.
First step is to search the universities in your desired country on the internet. Once you go to the website of any university, go to the faculty and see who are the professors and observe what they are doing. Drop an individual email to the professors of your interest. No, they don’t mind you sending them an email directly. The email should contain your strengths and your desired area in few lines. The rates of response will be slow, one in ten probably, but if you get a response, that’s it! You are nearly there. Every professor has got industrial and governmental projects in his lab, for which he needs researchers to work upon. If he is interested in you, he will support your studies, will get the university to waive-off your tuition and will ensure that you are provided a living stipend so that you can simply relax and study!
It’s simple, isn’t it? Now if you want me to type an email for you, sorry I won’t do that for you. If you can read this, then your English is good enough, far better than a lot of Koreans and Japanese. English language is a great barrier especially in research for East Asian countries and they consider Pakistani students as a blessing. They need you to do research for them in English. Some universities like AJOU and KNU will give you direct access to the professors while for others you have to search the university website. Drop emails to the professors and wait for the response. I repeat, consistency and persistence is all that you need.
In each university, professors run labs based on industrial projects, so the funding is not an issue. If professor is interested in you, he will accept you and rest are formalities. For instance, in my lab, my professor accepted a medical student, who was a graduate in ophthalmology, to do PhD in Biomedical Engineering, a totally different field. I have seen people with the background of computer engineering having PhDs in chemical engineering. So it’s all about you, identify your area and locate the professors in those areas. Prefer the professors with more experience and more projects. Labs do have their websites, and it contains emails addresses of the PhD students, drop them an email as well. I know a lot of students who got scholarships by this method. Most importantly, you can find scholarships with living stipend for Masters degree without many prerequisites.
In the process, you might identify certain university scholarships, governmental scholarships, and some industrial scholarships. It was strange for me to see people with all those different scholarships, and their only ability was that they searched for it or someone told them about it. Korean and Japanese governments also give scholarship opportunities to the students of developing world, which need to be searched upon. For some students, even the tickets were paid by the professors. My professor paid my house rent for two consecutive years as I didn’t want to live in a dorm room.
The standard of education in the universities of East Asia, typically in Japan and Korea is getting much better. You can find quite a few of them in top 200 of international rankings. Tokyo University, National University of Singapore, KAIST, SNU and Yonsei are considered top class universities with tangible contribution towards research. One important factor which directly contributes towards the international ranking of a university is the number of enrolled foreign students; thats why the universities of East Asia are interested in attracting foreigners. Therefore, these universities are offering alot of opportunities to the foreign students, especially to those who are from developing world. So if you don’t have the fortunes to study in USA and UK etc, you can certainly utilize the opportunities which are being offered in East Asia.
Having said all this, life is not a piece of cake out there. You have to be strong enough to survive the test of times. If it doesn’t kill you, it will make u stronger. So if u can live alone, and live abroad in a different culture; then you can get the opportunity of studying there. Most importantly, once you are out and in the open, you learn a lot. The benefit of getting scholarship in East Asia would be that you can quit and move on at any time as there’s very little you have invested in monetary terms. There is no bond and you have free will to carry on or quit. In short, all you need is passion and the doors will open for you InshaALLAH.
Unless the residents have a desire of self-help for the change of their life, even if they wait for 5000 years, there will be no change. If the village residents try to change their life now, even with little support of government, they will be able to change their life in 2-3 years’. (Ex Korean President Park Jung Hee)
These simple words underline the spirit of the a movement which revolutionized the life of Koreans. The lesson is very important __ No one will bring change for you, if you don’t want it yourself. And small consistent changes, will lead to a big and visible transformation.
Korea was ruined by Japanese colonization and inter-Korean war. In 1950s, the plight of Koreans was miserable and the nation was extremely poor, with very little food to survive. Harsh winters added to their miseries and ‘food n shelter’ was first priority for all Koreans. Per capita income was $79 in 1960, while that of Pakistan was $91 during the same Year.
Koreans studied Pakistani 5-year plan system and adopted it in 1962. They started industrialization and the results were soon obvious in shape of industrial growth and development of cities, but the rural areas were still lagging far. Koreans soon realized that sustainable growth cannot be achieved without rural development. The standard of life in the villages was very low, with only 20% of the villages having electricity and only 20 % houses having roof. Roads, infrastructure, tools and equipment for farming were missing altogether. The positive things were good literacy rate and mandatory military service which produced a disciplined workforce.
In 1970, Saemul Undong (New Village Movement) was launched, aimed at improving the life of villagers. The idea was to pave the gap between rural and urban life, improving the living standard in rural areas and increasing the opportunities for the villagers to earn more. The idea was to stop migration to cities. ‘A better village to live in’ was the goal of the movement.
Government started with SMU in a unique way. They asked the villagers to participate in the program on self-help basis. Three principles of ‘diligence, self help and cooperation’ were decided to be the basis of the movement. The underlying spirit was to work with diligence as there is no freebie in the world and ‘early bird catches the worm’. The lazy and lethargic Koreans were taught to take actions for fulfilling their desires. The spirit of cooperation was also very important, as one cannot wash face with one finger.
When the movement started, government was not in a very good financial situation, so they asked for the cooperation of residents of villages. It provided 335 packs of cement to each of 33,267 villages in the country. Government suggested ten projects such as making roads, reforming roofs of homes, constructing public wells, making small water reservoirs and small bridges etc .Villagers had to decide one of the projects and then implement it. They had to arrange the material such as sand and pebbles themselves, and had to work together to execute the project. They had to select Seamaul leaders for themselves, who were volunteers, and would play the role of coordinators and arbitrators.
After one year of evaluation, the success ratio was about 50% .The performance of 16,600 villages was good, and they had completed their first task. It was a turning point, the government decided to generate competition. They gave 500 sacks of cement and one ton steel to only these 16,600 villages, which were able to complete their first task, while remaining villages were told to do something with self-help and then government will decide accordingly.
This produced amazing results; a lot of villages improved very quickly, and more and more were joining the movement actively. Based on this, government classified the villages into three categories according to their progress, and supported the outstanding villages more, which generated high competition.
The government established central council for the movement, to analyze and evaluate the performance. A training center was instituted to train the leaders elected by villagers. This helped in development of leadership at grass root level. Women and youth were given equal participation, each village selecting a a leader, woman leader and young leader for the project. These voluntary leaders helped the government to plan, cooridnate and carry out the projects in a proper manner.
New projects were considered on the basis of their benefits to the entire community. The government did not interfere directly into the selection of projects. It was just overseeing the technical aspects and providing help with which the villagers couldn’t do themselves.
Soon they realized that without improving the income of villagers, their life could not be improved, so the next step was to improve the income level of villagers and eliminate poverty. Projects were focused to improve roads to the farms so that tractors and other machinery could be used in farming. Farmers were provided with basic tools and were trained for the better productivity. Irrigation system was improved and small water reservoirs were built to preserve water. Also green houses were developed to do farming in winters. Investments were done in live-stocks and villagers were encouraged to grow live-stock for better income.
Agricultural complexes were made for profitable products such as mushrooms and tobacco, which helped to increase over all income. Greenhouses allowed farmers to harvest during harsh winter season. Fishing villages changed their production methods from fishing to breeding fish. All of this improved the income level of villagers. As a result, agriculture household income was more than that of city workers. After only four years, the rural community household income was $674, more than that of urban household income of $644. This economic growth led to subjugate poverty and brought revolution in the mindset of people.
Residents were given the sense of ownership and they were the direct beneficiaries. During initial stage, the focus was on improvement of thatched houses, heating system inside homes and agriculture roads. Then the focus shifted to more infra-structure reforms. Electricity and water supply, agriculture machinery, irrigation system, all were aimed to improve the life of villagers with their involvement. The concepts of hard-work and self-help were embedded in this whole movement.
Due to proper evaluation system, government soon realized the mistakes of the movement. Villagers lacked technical skills to build bridges and roads. So government provided technical support and training required for the projects.
Grass root level leadership evolved as a reason of this movement, which lead to the development of Korea on many fronts. Corruption wasn’t a problem in this project, as population was involved in it, and the residents carried out the projects themselves. They also contributed financially to the extent they were able to do. The collective participation brought in transparency and better utilization of resources. The change went from rural to urban areas of Korea, whereas it is usually the other way around.
Korea today has become one of the top growing economies in the world, with national income of $ 20,014 per capita, (remember in 1960, Korea was at $79, and Pakistan was $91). This is despite the fact that Korea has no natural resources, and it relies only on its human resource. It is now one of the most advanced countries in internet usage, banking system and industrialized nation.
Korea has started to implement this project in African countries. While other countries prefer to perform charity work, Koreans are trying to engage villagers by asking them to contribute equally. For instance, the project of establishing a goat bank is very good idea. Villagers are given goats, to raise, and when they breed more goats, the original ones are returned, thus establishing a live-stock bank.
In Pakistan, if we want to do something, our ‘actions must speak louder than words’; so the projects must be aimed at ‘doing more-talking less’ spirit. The basic element in these projects should be consistency and continuity, learning from past experiences and improving with time. We can learn from these experiences as we are a resource rich country. We don’t have the problem of poverty similar to that of Koreans, our infra structure is not very up to the mark, but we do have something to build upon, so we don’t have to start from zero. Our villages are usually big, and we lack consensus on leadership and projects. We are heavily divided and our women don’t work usually as labour workforce in building the bridges and widening the roads. So we need to make certain changes in this model and in our society too, for our growth and development.
All we need is to participate on community basis, helping ourselves, and taking bold initiatives. When this movement started in Korea, a lot of people criticized it, but government continued persuading villagers to take part in the development process, and it yielded results. The evaluation of projects was step-wise and better performing villages were rewarded on the basis of merit. This helped a great deal in raising awareness and competition level.
Saemaul Movement members hold a briefing session with locals in Tanzania, to explain the concept and meaning of the Saemaul Undong
Most important notion to learn is the reforms of the mind-set, to ‘we can do it’. Starting by simple, small projects, doing something tangible, will lead to something better and bigger eventually. We think of big projects first, but sometimes we need to think ‘small’ and ‘in the box’. Making roofs for homes, kitchens in houses, toilets, small water reservoirs, improving sanitary conditions, building small bridges, improving water supply and sewerage systems- eventually the change will be getting bigger and visible which will help in improving the living standards.
Another point to focus is to increase the income of villagers, to stop urbanization. We believe in giving alms and charity, but instead we should focus more on trying to make poor people earn more money. Increasing their income will change their mentality. As I mentioned earlier, Saemaul Undong wasn’t focusing on education and public health in the start, because people were mostly concerned about food and shelter, but as the movement went on to bring the change, people started thinking about education, health, learning opportunities and community life. Koreans did that successfully and now their rural life has almost all the facilities of their urban life so more and more people are preferring rural life.
In short, collaborative efforts will bring change, and rural development is the key to sustainable development even in the industrialized nations. More importantly, the focus should be to ‘ do more, talk less’
OK! so you wish to study abroad, and do not have the fortunes to pursue your dreams? Well, it’s not the end of the world for you. When there is a will, there is a way and the way is to get scholarships.
