Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS)

The Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS) to Nepal started from Japanese fiscal year 2015. The objective of JDS is to strengthen the government’s administrative capacities by providing opportunities to young and capable government employees to obtain master’s and PhD degree who are expected to engage in formulating and implementing social and economic development plans and thus play leadership roles to contribute to the development of Nepal.

Each year, the scholarship offers 20 seats for two-year master’s degree course (since 2016) and 2 seats for three-year Doctoral level course (since 2019) to in the reputed universities of Japan. Since 2016, 209 civil servants have been awarded scholarship through the JDS Grant Aid program with 163 having returned to Nepal to contribute to their organization as well as communities and strengthen the JDS alumni network.
The returned JDS fellows have formed an alumni association known as JDS Alumni Association of Nepal (JDSAAN).
JDS program phase 3 consists of two priority areas and five sub-components.

JDS fellows are further expected to contribute to enhance the bilateral relationship between Nepal and Japan as a bridge with well-rounded knowledge of Japan. They get a special opportunity for directly learning first-hand knowledge of Japanese experiences in the good environment as well as for building wide human networks.

The field of study in the JDS program are called sub-programs (target priority areas) and components (development issues). The following table describes the priority areas together with corresponding Graduate schools and number of students accepted by each university in a year.