For the Academic Year 2014-2015, the said scholarships were awarded during the DAAD Handover Ceremony at the German Club, Makati City on 28 November 2014. The scholarship was conferred to nationals of Myanmar (6), Philippines (3), Thailand (1), and Vietnam (3).
The German Ambassador to the Philippines Thomas Ossowski hosted the event, which was also attended by Michael Fuchs, First Secretary and Cultural Attache of Germany to Philippines, Dr. Virginia R. Cardenas, SEARCA’s Deputy Director for Administration, Dr. Maria Cristeta N. Cuaresma, Program Head for Graduate Education and Institutional Development (GEID), and Ms. Zacyl R. Jalotjot, Program Specialist for GEID. Ms. Janina Brill, DAAD Lektorin and Visiting Lecturer at the University of the Philippines Diliman was also present in the event.
Ten of these DAAD-SEARCA graduate scholars are taking their PhDs, while the remaining are Master’s degree student.
The DAAD or Deutscher Akademishcher Austausch Dienst and SEARCA partnership dates back to 1975 when its first 15 scholarship grants were awarded to nationals of Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to pursue graduate degrees in Agriculture and related sciences. To date, the DAAD-SEARCA scholarship grants have benefited 355 Southeast Asians working towards agriculture and rural development in the countries of Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Timor Leste, Thailand and Vietnam.