Our Co-Director, Morgan, had a short stop off in Kathmandu before heading down to Nawalparasi, here’s his fifth diary entry:
Sunday 20th
My Co-Director, Richard, and I visited Prof Rejina Maskey at Tribhuvan University this morning to reflect on the 2019 higher education programme and plan for 2020. We agreed on a slight tweak. From this year on, we’ll be providing two dissertation scholarships of 50,000 Nepali Rupee (approx. £320) to assist the two Tribhuvan students who act as research assistants and translators for the U.K. students who travel to Nepal each summer.
Masters students at Tribhuvan take a two year course, rather than the one year programme that is typical in the U.K. Tribhuvan select two first year students to partner with the UK students and base the selection on them having shared research interests. For the Tribhuvan students, the research trip with their U.K. partners is a chance to do some preliminary field study and formulate their research questions.
The field experience they gain, including the joint learning with their U.K. partners, sets them up for their own dissertation research, which they conduct a year later. It is this dissertation work that our new scholarship will contribute towards. This is all part of our effort to develop the next generation of climate change adaptation professionals.