Japan provides human resources development scholarships for public sector officials

• JDS scholarship provides opportunities to executive level public sector officials to pursue Master Degree Programs in prominent universities in Japan
• 180 opportunities for Master Degree Programs, 8 opportunities for PhD programs
• Sri Lanka received Japanese Yen 271 m as JDS grant assistance in 2021
• Govt. expects public officers benefitting from scholarship will contribute to country’s socio economic development

The Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resources Development Scholarship (JDS) program has completed the selection process of the fourth batch under the third framework and the selected officials are scheduled to commence studies in September.

In this regard, an exchange of note between the two Governments, and grant agreements between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for the implementation of this program were signed yesterday at the Finance Ministry.

On behalf of the Government, Finance Ministry Secretary S. R. Attygalle and on behalf of the Government of Japan Ambassador in Sri Lanka Akira Sugiyama, JICA Chief Representative Yamada Tetsuya signed the relevant documents.

JDS was introduced to Sri Lanka in 2010 by the Government of Japan to provide opportunities to the executive level public sector officials to pursue Master Degree Programs in prominent universities in Japan.Accordingly, the First Framework (2010-2013) and the Second Framework (2014–2017) of this program were successfully completed in 2013 and 2017 respectively. The Third Framework (2018–2021), was started in 2018 and will be ended up in 2021. 

In view of ensuring further career development of JDS fellows, the Government of Japan has agreed to offer scholarships for PhD programs at most two slots per batch. Accordingly, altogether 180 (15 per year) opportunities for Master Degree Programs and eight opportunities for PhD programs have already been provided under this scholarship program.  

Since 2010, the Government of Japan has been providing necessary grant funds for the expenditure of the JDS program annually and accordingly, in 2021 also a grant assistance of Japanese Yen 271 million (approximately Rs.488 million according to current exchange rate) has been offered to Sri Lanka.  

The Government expects that the public officers who will be benefited under this program will contribute to the socio economic development of the country in a very productive manner.