The Commission first supported scholarships by distance learning in 2002 as part of both the Commission and the Department for International Development’s (DFID) commitment to exploring new methods of delivery.

Rather than offering scholarships to students the Commission works directly with UK institutions and has to date funded courses over 20 UK institutions, awarding over 900 scholarships to students from across the Commonwealth. See below for information on submitting a bid.

We have awarded scholarships to institutions using a variety of distance learning modes and the Commission will accept bids from institutions interested in any or all of the three schemes listed below:

Partnership delivery
These courses are offered in partnership with institutions in developing Commonwealth countries and chosen on the grounds of their impact on international development. The awards are used to improve the long-term capacity of institutions, as well as the individual recipients. The seventh 'cohort' of these awards will be taken up in 2008/09 and the Commission currently offers around 15 scholarships per course.

• List of Institutions offering Partnership Distance Learning courses

Non-partnership
In 2006 our distance learning programme was extended to support the direct delivery of distance learning courses (ie where there is no overseas partner institution directly involved in the programme). 11 courses have thus far been supported, currently we have only supported up to 6 scholarships per course.

• List of institutions offering non-partnership Distance Learning courses

Health and Education in Africa
In 2006 the Commission was awarded funding by DFID to support up to 200 distance learning courses tenable in Sub-Saharan Africa and specifically for courses in health and education. These awards will be funded by a discrete tranche of £1.8 million and the Commission hopes that a similar tranche will become available in the near future. The present tranche has enabled funding for 11 courses at 8 institutions with up to 30 awards on offer per course.

• List of institutions offering Health and Education courses

Please note: scholarships for distance learning are not offered directly to students by the Commission.  UK institutions will conduct their own recruitment exercises; these normally include announcements  placed in the media and on their own websites.  Applications should only be submitted to an institution in response to a recruitment exercise.

Submitting a bid
The Commission sends out an invitation every June to all UK institutions inviting them to submit expressions of interest. This call for expressions of interest is the only one for the coming year; therefore institutions should submit all proposals in this round, whether they involve a partner or not.
The Commission expects all expression of interests to be submitted with the approval of an institution and therefore they should be submitted through the Executive Head in the first instance. A copy of the expressions of interest form can be accessed below; it is for the use of UK institutions only.

The Committee will consider all eligible Expressions of Interest at a meeting held every October. Successful course providers are then invited to submit a formal bid for support and these are considered at a meeting held in January each year; it is then that the committee decides on the number of Scholarships to be allocated to a particular course.

• 2008 Prospectus

• Expression of Interest Form
  

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