ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship (ACYLS)
Host Country
Implementing Agency
Year
Beneficiary
Students from all ASEAN Member States
Brief History of Project
The ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship (ACYLS) Program is an initiative in response to the call of the leaders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and ASEAN Member States (AMS) to strengthen educational cooperation and people-to-people ties between China and ASEAN.
Announced by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the 21st ASEAN-China Summit held in Singapore on 14 November 2018, ACYLS aims to contribute to ASEAN community building as well as mutual understanding and friendship between China and ASEAN towards a closer community of a shared future by offering various opportunities to ASEAN nationals to study in top Chinese universities and participate in training courses in China.
ACYLS-Graduate Program is a sub-program under the ACYLS framework, that aims to provide scholarships for ASEAN mid-career professionals to pursue Master’s or doctoral degree studies in top Chinese universities. It is envisioned to be a long-term project that is opened to all qualified ASEAN nationals on a yearly basis. The ACYLS-Graduate Program 2019-2023 has been successfully carried out in Autumn 2019.
Project's Achievements / Outcomes
In total, 22 master’s degree students and 27 PhD students have been sponsored by this program.
- In 2019, the first batch of 16 ASEAN nationals was awarded scholarships and are pursuing their degree studies in China.
- In 2020, despite the widely spread of COVID-19 pandemic, 33 awardees including 14 master’s degree and 19 PhD students were successfully admitted by top universities in China such as Peking University and Tsinghua University. The unprecedented pandemic has posed a big challenge to the implementation of ACYLS program.
- ACYLS-graduate Program aims to strengthen people-to-people exchanges and academic exchanges between AMS and China by providing prestigious postgraduate scholarships for up to 100 ASEAN nationals, to pursue Master’s Degrees or PhD studies in Chinese universities.