Students from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya are some of the major winners of the 443 Banach Scholarships this year, following a call by NAWA which attracted applications from Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Students from African countries of South Africa, Angola and Senegal have also won places.

After the February call, some from 3,587 applications were received from citizens of 34 different countries, 1,538 higher than those made in 2022 and also higher than the 1,966 who applied for the same in 2021.

“As before, the largest groups of beneficiaries come from Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Palestine, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and Belarus. For the first time there are scholarship holders from Bosnia and Herzegovina,” NAWA announced recently.

“The number of applications submitted in this year’s call shows that the program is becoming more and more popular,” NAWA added.

“The program is becoming more and more popular”

The most popular fields of study were engineering and technology, natural and social sciences, and the majority of the grantees will study at universities in Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków and Poznań.

The objective of the program is to “promote socio-economic progress of developing countries”, the agency continued.

It does so by offering second-degree studies in Polish or English at the universities, it noted.

The scheme is implemented under Polish Aid, part of Poland’s development and humanitarian assistance, targeting young people who wish to study in Poland.

The scholarship scheme is named after Poland’s famous mathematician Stefan Banach, co-founder of the Lviv school of mathematics. It covers tuition fees, and beneficiaries receive a monthly stipend of 1,500 Polish Złoty (approximately US$360) in living expenses.