MONTEGO BAY, St James — A carefully cultivated sister city relationship between Montego Bay and cities in China’s Shandong province has created the opportunity for two tertiary-level students to study in the Asian country next year.

Applications are now open for the Shandong Provincial Scholarship, according to Mayor of Montego Bay Richard Vernon.

“The mayor’s office will take applications by Thursday, August 28 and we expect to close by October,” he told the
Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

“If the programme starts [next] January we will send them off in January and if it starts in August, we will send them then,” Vernon explained.

Individuals aged between 18 and 45 are eligible to apply for the provincial-level government scholarship at the bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral level. It covers full or partial funding for international students pursuing degrees or language studies at participating universities in Shandong.

Applicants will be asked to choose three universities from the list provided and their applications will be sent to the respective universities for a final determination.

Scholarship recipients will not be bonded, but Vernon made it clear he expects them to return and contribute to the development of the western city.

“We expect them to go there to learn, first and foremost, to develop their capacity and to come back and to apply to the further development of Montego Bay what they learned in China,” he said optimistically.

“The students will be venturing in various areas — in agriculture, in technology, in science, in medicine — and so whatever they acquire in their knowledge and capacity development, we expect them to come back and inject that knowledge, capacity development, and technical support in the further development of our city,” he added.

For years, the Government of Jamaica and the People’s Republic of China have provided scholarships for Jamaicans to study abroad. However, according to Vernon, Montego Bay is the first municipality to make a city-level scholarship happen, and he is determined to build on the existing ties.

“We have a good relationship between the mayor’s office and the Embassy of China. There is a new ambassador coming and this is one of his initiatives to support the city of Montego Bay, [through] exchanges. This one is one of the most tangible returns we have had from sister city relationships over that period of time,” Vernon declared.

“We’ve had good returns with our Atlanta sister city and now China,” he said.

The mayor anticipates the programme will eventually be expanded, giving more Jamaican students an opportunity to study China.

During the interview he also used the opportunity to highlight the work of an individual who was instrumental in laying much of the groundwork that led to the scholarships.

“We have established a sister city relationship with China that spans over 15 years and the sister city started with the efforts of Clinton Chin,” Vernon said.

“That is why we did the mayor’s charity fund award ceremony for the applicants in honour of Clinton Chin as well. He was instrumental in pulling the cities together and also with the ongoing conversations between the embassy and the mayor’s office, he has been very instrumental in that,” he explained.