No cuts in scholarship allocations for Indonesians: Netherlands

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 11/01/2011

The Netherlands has no plans to cut the portion of scholarships it has been allocating for Indonesians despite the debt crisis currently plaguing the Eurozone, a Dutch official said here on Tuesday.

“Don't worry about budgets. We're still offering wide opportunities for Indonesians who want to study in the Netherlands,” Nuffic NESO Indonesia director Mervin Bekker told a press gathering in Jakarta.

Nuffic Neso Indonesia is the official representative of Nuffic -the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education- in Indonesia; for all matters concerning Dutch higher education.

Bekker said the Dutch government was even planning to further expand its partnership with Indonesian education institutions.

He said the Netherlands considered Indonesia important in its international education cooperation policy, citing127 partnerships that had been established between Dutch and Indonesian higher education institutions, 22 percent of which covered student exchanges and 19 percent were in the form of research partnerships, Antara news agency reported.