MSc Responsible Tourism Management Commonwealth Scholarships

This month we are delighted to welcome seven students from Kenya and Rwanda joining our MSc Responsible Tourism Management (RTM) course through our Commonwealth distance learning scholarships.

These highly prestigious scholarship places have been funded by the former UK Department for International Development (DFID), with the aim of contributing to the UK’s international development aims and wider overseas interests, supporting excellence in UK higher education, and sustaining the principles of the Commonwealth. They are also the outcome of the collaboration between our LBU School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Dedan Kamathi University of Technology (DEKUTs) and a number of our existing alumni/educational partners in the region (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania) designed to build on our East African responsible tourism practitioners network and promote responsible tourism in this region.

This is our fifth successful application for funding from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission for our MSc RTM course. We have now received a total of 45 scholarships awarded to students from The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. Competition for the scholarships is always very strong, this year of the 58 courses receiving scholarship funding, more than 50% of the eligible courses were offered from 9 Russell Group universities including one course offered by Oxford University.  There were 6 themes for funding and the MSc RTM was the only course to receive funding under the theme Promoting Global Prosperity, and the only tourism course funded.

Our scholarships are targeted at early to mid-career tourism professionals who will study part-time over three years. This will allow them to apply their learning to their current work and contribute to local economic development and poverty reduction through delivering responsible tourism in their home countries. This year we are delighted to welcome students working for the Rwandan Development Bank, Ecotourism Kenya, safari camps, local tour operators and tourism and hospitality training institutes and universities. Unfortunately, our face to face teaching originally planned for this month at DEKUTS campus in Kenya has been postponed due to COVID 19 but we are really looking forward to meeting our new students in person as soon as it is possible.

If you have any queries about the MSc Responsible Tourism course or these Commonwealth scholarships please contact Lucy McCombes (email: l.mccombes@leedsbeckett.ac.uk).