The Czech government scholarship programme for students from developing countries – Evaluation findings and policy reflections

• The evaluation focuses on the scholarship programme for students from developing countries provided as a part of the development cooperation.
• The evaluation results reflect in policy changes.
• The impact evaluation indicates inefficiencies in the system.
• The process evaluation reveals five key weaknesses in the system.
• The lack of monitoring after studies precludes to assess impacts of the programme.

In Czech Republic there is a long tradition of providing tertiary scholarships to students from developing countries. The government scholarship programme started in the 1950s already as a part of the Czechoslovak technical assistance to countries in the South. Even though the programme left tens of thousands of graduates all over the world, the recent programme evaluation has revealed that it is characterised by a relatively poor performance. This article brings forward the main outcomes of the programme evaluation, highlights the policy recommendations and summarises policy reflections that occurred following the evaluation. The programme evaluation was done under unfavourable circumstances and could be accordingly defined as ‘shoestring evaluation’. The restrictions and their influence on evaluation outcomes are discussed in article, too.