The Czech government scholarship programme for students from developing countries--evaluation findings and policy reflections

Abstract

In Czech Republic there is a long tradition of providing tertiary scholarships to students from developing countries. The government scholarship programme started in the 1950s already as a part of the Czechoslovak technical assistance to countries in the South. Even though the programme left tens of thousands of graduates all over the world, the recent programme evaluation has revealed that it is characterised by a relatively poor performance. This article brings forward the main outcomes of the programme evaluation, highlights the policy recommendations and summarises policy reflections that occurred following the evaluation. The programme evaluation was done under unfavourable circumstances and could be accordingly defined as 'shoestring evaluation'. The restrictions and their influence on evaluation outcomes are discussed in article, too.

Keywords: Developing countries; Programme evaluation; Scholarship programmes; Shoestring evaluation; Tertiary education.