The German Embassy in the Philippines awarded master’s and PhD scholarships on agriculture courses to 11 Southeast Asians, three of which are Filipinos.
The scholarships were granted under the In-Country/In-Region Scholarship Programme by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) through the Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA).
DAAD is one of SEARCA’s staunchest and longest partners in its human resource development program. Since 1975, more than 380 DAAD-SEARCA scholarships have been awarded, 90 percent of which have been completed.
The scholarship certificates for academic year 2019 to 2020 at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) were presented to eight of the 11 scholars in a handover ceremony presided by. Kai Tomzig, First Secretary for Cultural Affairs. Also present was Katja Becker-Sliwa, DAAD representative and lecturer at UP Diliman (UPD) and SEARCA representatives.
The Filipino scholars are Edchelle S. Flores pursuing MS in Community Development and Marla V. Relloso and Zyra May H. Centino, both pursuing PhD in Agricultural Economics.
The other DAAD-scholars are from Cambodia, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. They are pursuing graduate programs in applied nutrition, environmental science, plant pathology, animal science, and agricultural economics.
Moreover, there are also 14 DAAD-SEARCA scholars studying in Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Indonesia, Kasetsart University (KU) in Thailand, and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Malaysia, who received scholarship grants for academic year 2019/2020.
Headed by Dr. Glenn B. Gregorio, SEARCA is mandated to strengthen institutional capacities in agricultural and rural development in Southeast Asia.
In the next five years, SEARCA will focus on promoting inclusive innovation and academe-industry-government interconnectivity towards Agriculture 4.0 and the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.