Development, Policy and Practice successfully secured the maximum award of 15 Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarships, worth a total of £270,000, funded by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office, to fund Ugandan development practitioners to study for the MSc in Global Development.

The Scholarships enable talented students to access training not otherwise available in their home country, via distance learning. The new awards continue the tradition of welcoming Commonwealth Scholars which has enabled over 100 students in East Africa to study for a postgraduate Development Masters with The OU since 2006.

These Scholarships are the first to be awarded for the MSc in Global Development, which launched in 2021.  The Scholarships are eligible for those Ugandan nationals employed by a development agency with a minimum of two years experience working in Uganda on development issues, and the successful applicants will begin their three years of study in October 2022. The qualification is taught by The Open University and managed locally by Kulika Uganda, a registered not-for-profit organisation with over thirty years’ experience in managing scholarships.

Dr Frangton Chiyemura led the Scholarship bid, saying “these scholarships will ensure that we continue to support development policy and practice in the region through our teaching.”

The MSc in Global Development is an innovative, interdisciplinary and flexible qualification that equips students to investigate, understand, and respond to Development challenges in the real world. “Whilst the course builds up skills for managing Development generally, the focus will be on strengthening peace, security and governance.  In Uganda, one potentially important application of this will be developing the role of civil society in promoting good governance."

Discover more about Development at The Open University.