Jinan Sets Up Friendship—City Student Scholarship

riendship cities are valuable resources of Jinan to carry out cooperation with the outside world， and it currently has such arrangements with 21 cities in 20 countries and friendly exchange relations with 24 cities in 18 countries.

In recent years， an increasing number of young people from Jinan’s friendship cities have made it their choice for overseas study. Some cities， such as Suwon of the Republic of Korea， Praia of Cape Verde and Sidoarjo in the East Java Province of Indonesia， have expressed the wish to send students to study in Jinan’s universities if possible on local scholarships.

Since 2010， by raising funds on their own， universities in Jinan have enrolled 113 students from eight friendship cities including Suwon， Vantaa of Finland and Porto Velho of Brazil. The fields of study have been extended from Chinese language at the beginning to professional degree education at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Unfortunately， fund limitations make it hard to increase the number.

Taking into account the needs for exchanges and cooperation in education， the Jinan Municipal Government set up the Friendship-City Student Scholarship in 2014， becoming one of the first Chinese cities to provide governmental scholarship to students from twinned cities.