Baku, November 2 AZERTAC 

Second Secretary, Vice Consul of the British Embassy in Baku James Holder has highlighted his remarks on recent Exhibition held in Baku.

In an interview with AZERTAC, Mr Holder commented on interest of Azerbaijani students to fair: “17 Universities attended the Fair and representatives came from across the UK to present information about their universities. Around 1500 Azerbaijanis attended the two-day fair to find out what opportunities were available. British universities have a prestigious reputation, and those present at the fair offer a wide variety of courses, including within the oil and gas spheres. London is of course among the most popular destinations for students, but the fair was able to open some eyes as to the opportunities available across the UK."

He spoke about how British Embassy doing to promote educational ties between the two countries: “The British Embassy works very closely with the British Council in Azerbaijan to promote UK as a destination for Azerbaijani students. The UK is renowned as one of the top destinations in the world for international students because of the high quality of research and employability. Some studies have shown that UK universities have the highest employability rates of any universities in the world.

The Second Secretary and Vice Consul of the British Embassy in Baku also provided insight into Chevening scholarship, the latest application deadline for which is 8 November: “One way in which the Embassy promotes studying opportunities in the UK is through Chevening scholarships. We offer a number of places to Azerbaijani students every year. Last year in Azerbaijan we had 182 applicants. From those we gave six scholarships to students to study in a variety of fields. A couple of them are doing finance-based masters degrees, one is studying oil and gas engineering, another two are studying in the education spheres. This demonstrates the variety of subjects that people are able to study. We are trying to spread the word about Chevening scholarships as we want to have more Azerbaijani applicants this year and in future. The deadline for applications for courses starting in 2017 is next week - 8th of November. So, we would encourage all those who are interested in studying in the UK to look at the website www.chevening.org and decide whether this scholarship suits them.

Mr. Holder also highlighted his recommendations to the Azerbaijani students: “One thing applicants need to be aware of is that once they have studied under a Chevening scholarship in the UK they must come back to Azerbaijan and work here for at least two years. This is core to the idea of Chevening scholarship. We are looking to encourage people to use the benefits of studying in UK to bring expertise back to the fields they want to work in in Azerbaijan. In terms of other recommendations to applicants, I would say that they need to think hard about why they want to study in the UK. What is it about the UK in particular that attracts them as a student? They should also really think about which subject they want to study and how studying this is going to help them in their future career”.

On the establishment of Chevening Alumni Association in Azerbaijan Mr. Holder said. “We also have a new Chevening alumni network here in Azerbaijan. So that gives another support network, another chance for people to share ideas, push each other further, and share their knowledge with future generations of chevening scholars. We hope that the link that scholars forge with the UK will stay with people for a long time and help to strengthen Azerbaijani-UK relations even further in the coming decades.”