Where Malaysians can find scholarships to study overseas

Type the keywords "Scholarships Malaysia" into a Google search bar, and you will definitely come across this as your first result:

Other than that, you will also find many offers from state, universities, institutions, foundations, companies and other organisations willing to sponsor studies locally and abroad.

With huge competition for popular scholarships such as JPA and MARA, what are the strategies you can use to get scholarships to study abroad?

1. Give Embassies a visit

Maybe actually going to the physical building won't be easy, but you should try visiting their official websites for information and updates.

You could also just call and send e-mail to the secretariats involved for scholarships that are not advertised publicly due to certain factors.

2. Aim for less popular countries

UK, Australia and US are a hotbed for Malaysian students, thus applying for a scholarship there might not be as easy, especially if your grades are great but not exceptional.

You might find luck with countries that are less popular among Malaysians such as Taiwan, China, Iran, Turkey, the Netherlands, Switzerland and even Singapore (due to it's close proximity!).

Did you know that the government of countries like India and China are always offering scholarships for Malaysians to study in competitive courses?

European countries that offer free tuition fees such as Finland, Germany, Norway may have scholarships to fund your living expenses or have a list of their citizens volunteering to be "foster parents" to help host you during your studies there.

3. Institution hunting

Each university, faculty, and research institutes are allocated a specific provision (by the insitution or their governments) in the form of sponsorship, especially at the postgraduate level.

The need to continuously hire tutors, fellows and researchers in carrying out a research project is very crucial for a university.

These scholarships on Afterschool.my usually have the name of the institutions as their title. Have a look at those!

4. Understudy opportunities

Another way is to send an e-mail to the faculty's dean, deputy dean, department head or lecturers with the potential to be your supervisor and asking them if there are any vacancies under their research grants.

That way, you will be able to fund your studies AND be mentored by someone you can look up to AND they get an assistant to help with their research. It's a WIN-WIN-WIN situation!

5. Keep yourself updated

There is a reason Afterschool.my is the number one result in Malaysia when looking for a scholarship.

Our team of dedicated webmasters are always on the lookout for the most up-to-date info on scholarships that will benefit Malaysian students like you.

Overseas scholarships are marked with the "overseas" label to make your search easier.

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Undeniably, it is not financially easy to pursue higher education nowadays due to economic uncertainty and the fall of the ringgit.

In any case, the key take away here is to not just look at constraints but try to be opportunistic and intelligently find an alternative.

As the saying goes, 'do or do not, there is no try'. Malaysia Boleh!