Немецкая служба академических обменов (DAAD): Поддержка и финансирование международного образования.

German funding and support organization

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD; Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), founded in 1925, is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co operation. the DAAD is in fact the largest such academic grant organisation worldwide The organisation was founded on 1 January 1925 but closed down in 1945, only to be re founded again in 1950. administered by the DAAD abroad are available to students of all academic disciplines and at each academic degree level, including undergraduates, graduating undergraduates and recent graduates with a BA, master's degree students, doctoral students, PhD candidates and postdoctoral scholars, and faculty. The DAAD worldwide network also includes around 50 information centers and around 450 DAAD lecturer positions. DAAD scholarship is one of the top scholarships offered by European country Germany for outstanding international students. Every year Students are selected on merit basis and offered a DAAD scholarship to study postgraduate degree masters and PhD in German universities.

The DAAD is mainly funded by the German government and the European Union. In 2017, the DAAD received 522 million Euro. The declared aim of the program was to create "a select elite among Syria's future leadership" for "active participation in organizing" post war Syria. In the initial stage of the program, 271 Syrians seen as suitable for university scholarships were chosen from potential candidates who were "either still living in Syria or in one of the bordering countries (Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey), or who had fled to Germany". The former were then brought to Germany to join those participants who were already there. The scholarships were to various universities throughout Germany. The German Foreign Office funded the bulk of the scholarships (200) with the balance being sponsored by Baden Württemberg (50) and North Rhine Westphalia (21). The scholarship curriculum included an introductory language course for those students who were not already fluent in, or otherwise had no prior knowledge of, German. Alongside this was a concomitant obligatory element intended to imbue the planned future Syrian elite with the "fundamental and practical knowledge and skills in political sciences, economics, social sciences, as well as operational competence."