Brazilian scholarship scheme open to tender

The Brazilian state of Pernambuco has announced that its Win the World (Ganhe o Mundo) scholarship scheme, which will provide 800 secondary students with a scholarship to study abroad, is open to tender for Brazil-based agents to bid for management of the programme.

The Pernambuco scholarship will select 800 14-to-17 year old students from the state’s top secondary schools for study in Canada, the USA and New Zealand during the first academic semester of 2013. All related costs including tuition fees, airfares, health insurance and a monthly living allowance will be covered by the state.

Education New Zealand (ENZ) has announced that it will receive 300 students, following agreements with Pernambuco’s Secretary for Education, Anderson Gomez. New Zealand high schools looking to receive students are being encouraged to express their interest to ENZ. A maximum of three-to-five students will be placed in each school.

Student selection will be based upon academic results in language and maths, results in an English course devised specifically for this programme, an interview with students and parents, and a project created by the students which presents how they plan to apply the experience and knowledge acquired during the programme.

The Pernambuco Education Secretariat will appoint a number of agencies to manage the scholarship scheme and work directly with education providers via a tender process. The successful agencies will be responsible for a number of measures including applying language tests if required, enrolling the students and arranging homestay accommodation. It has not yet been confirmed when the tender process will end and how many agencies will be appointed.

The Win the World programme was first unveiled in November 2011 and as well as the study abroad scheme also seeks to provide more access to English language learning in Pernambuco high schools and provide enhanced teacher training to around 450 English teachers state-wide. Pernambuco state is located in the northeast of Brazil and has a population of around nine million inhabitants.