By Mohammed Alshaikhi

London — The Ministry of Education recently unveiled the terms and conditions of including self-funded students into the scholarship program scheme.

Self-funded students are eligible to be included and awarded scholarships as long as they receive an approval to study abroad from the Ministry of Education, have a good moral conduct, are medically fit, and have not been previously dismissed from the scholarship program.

In addition, a student must be a resident in the country of study and study full-time, must study either medicine, medical and health sciences or electrical and electronic engineering or accountancy or law or computer sciences.

A‏ student who has applied for scholarship in the King Abdullah Scholarship Program must be enrolled in one of the world’s top 50 academic programs in their chosen field or have taken admission in one of the top 100 universities worldwide as per the ministry’s list.

Undergraduate students would need to have finished at least 30 credit hours with a minimum 3.0 out of 4 GPA, (passing the first year in countries such as Britain and Australia). Postgraduate students, who completed their Bachelor degree, are required to achieve 3.75, whilst Ph.D. applicants must not be less than 3.3 out of 4 GPA in their Master or equivalent degrees.

Students would need to have finished at least 9 credit hours per academic term or finishing the compulsory modules in their fields with a minimum 3.3 out of 4 GPA, or its equivalent.

Students newly joining the scholarship program will be treated as scholarship holders.

The Ministry of Education has identified engineering disciplines that students should study such as aerospace engineering, marine engineering, polymer engineering, nuclear engineering, material engineering, environmental engineering and computer architecture.

A student must not be an employee in the private nor public sectors even if s/he gets a study leave or unpaid leave (leave of absence in exceptional circumstances). The chosen field and subject must be closely relevant to what has previously been studied (the previous field and subject).