Scholarships in Nepal: The Complete Directory for Nepali Students

Scholarships for Nepali students fall into two broad tracks: awards to study inside Nepal, and awards to study abroad on foreign-government funding. The domestic track is dominated by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), and the Medical Education Commission (MEC), while the foreign track is run mainly through the embassies of India and China. Most schemes are need-based, merit-based, or reserved for targeted (inclusion) groups, and many combine all three.

Two features recur across almost every genuine scholarship. First, applications are almost always made online through an official government or embassy portal, and free schemes never charge a processing fee at the government level. Second, each scheme opens in a fairly predictable annual window tied to the academic calendar, so the practical task is to track the right portal and apply within the notice period. Dates, seat counts and stipend amounts are revised year to year, so this page states durable structure and points you to the primary source for the current figures.

The list below merges the major recognised schemes into a single reference. On amarnepal.com each scholarship also has its own detail entry covering provider, level, eligibility, benefits, age limits, indicative seat count, portal and typical window, and the directory can be filtered by level (school, bachelor, master, PhD, MBBS), by provider, and by target group.

The University Grants Commission's Higher Education Scholarship is the flagship domestic award for bachelor's and master's students studying at recognised institutions inside Nepal. It is aimed squarely at inclusion: students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, Dalit students, Muslim women, children of martyrs and conflict victims, and freed Kamlari (Kamaiya) students. New applications are accepted from students in the first year of a bachelor's or master's programme.

The published age ceilings are up to 25 years for bachelor's and up to 30 years for master's applicants; these limits are waived for children of martyrs and conflict victims and for students with disabilities. Required documents typically include the Nepali citizenship certificate, a recent photograph, academic transcript, college enrolment letter, category-verification document, a recommendation letter (downloadable from the scholarship section), and a copy of the applicant's bank account cheque-book. Applications are submitted through the UGC scholarship portal.

Beyond the undergraduate award, UGC runs a family of research fellowships for faculty and young scholars, most notably a PhD Fellowship and an MPhil Fellowship that provide a monthly stipend to those enrolled in doctoral or MPhil-leading-to-PhD study at Nepali or recognised foreign universities. A key condition is that the applicant must not already hold a fellowship or research grant from another source. Fellowship stipend amounts are fixed by UGC and change year to year, so confirm the current rate from the live UGC notice rather than relying on an older figure.

The Embassy of India in Kathmandu funds two large need-based schemes for Nepali students who study inside Nepal. The Mahatma Gandhi Scholarship Scheme (MGSS) supports students in Class XI and XII, while the Golden Jubilee Scholarship Scheme (GJSS) supports undergraduate study, including professional degrees such as MBBS, BDS and engineering. Both are strongly income-targeted: a common published condition is that the applicant's family income must be below a set annual threshold (around NRs 200,000 in recent cycles), and applicants already receiving a scholarship from another source are not eligible.

Award values are set per cycle. In recent notices, GJSS awards were around NRs 48,000 per year for MBBS/BDS and engineering and about NRs 36,000 per year for other three-year undergraduate programmes, while MGSS awards for Class XI-XII were about NRs 24,000 per year; treat these as indicative and confirm the current-year figures from the embassy notice. Applications for both schemes are submitted online through the Government of India scholarship portal at goischolarship.com.np, which usually opens in the October-November window each year.

These schemes are distinct from India's much larger programme of scholarships to study in India itself, which is administered by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and covered in the next section. GJSS and MGSS keep the recipient in a Nepali institution, which suits students who want financial support without relocating abroad.

For Nepali students who want to study in India, the Government of India offers around 1,500 scholarships and seats every year, most of them administered by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). These span school level through to PhD and cover fields from engineering and medicine to agriculture, pharmacy, business, and music and fine arts. The two headline general schemes are the Atal Bihari Vajpayee General Scholarship Scheme (ABVGSS), for undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD study, and the Silver Jubilee Scholarship Scheme (SJSS) for postgraduate and PhD study.

Alongside these sit several specialised schemes. The COMPEX (Combined Competitive Examination) scheme funds undergraduate study in engineering, pharmacy, agriculture, food technology and nursing; the AYUSH scheme supports traditional-medicine study; the Homi Jahangir Bhabha Scholarship Scheme covers Master's in engineering; and the Nepal Aid Fund supports Master's in agriculture. Additional schemes include the Lata Mangeshkar Dance & Music Scholarship, the Forest Research Institute scholarship, and the Scholarship Programme for Diaspora Children.

Applications for ICCR schemes are made online through the ICCR A2A portal (a2ascholarships.iccr.gov.in), with the Embassy of India, Kathmandu, publishing the annual notice and handling the Nepal-side process. Because there are many separate schemes, each with its own eligibility, level and deadline, always read the specific scheme notice rather than assuming one common rule.

The Chinese Government Scholarship, run by the China Scholarship Council (CSC), is the main route for Nepali students to study in China on full funding. A typical CSC award covers tuition, on-campus accommodation, a monthly living stipend, comprehensive health insurance, and in many cases a one-time round-trip airfare. It is available at bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels, with published age ceilings that are usually below 25 for bachelor's, 35 for master's and 40 for doctoral applicants.

There are two main application channels. Type A applications are routed through the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, which issues an annual call for a set number of embassy-nominated slots; Type B applications are made directly to a participating Chinese university. In both cases the student completes the CSC online application form on the official CSC system, typically choosing up to three universities, and secures a pre-admission or admission letter from a Chinese institution. Applicants for Chinese-taught programmes usually submit an HSK language certificate, while English-taught programmes require IELTS or TOEFL.

The CSC application window generally runs from around December to April, and successful applicants receive an Admission Notice and JW201 form used to obtain an X1 student visa at the visa centre in Kathmandu. The embassy also periodically advertises specialised programmes such as the Youth of Excellence Scheme (YES-China) master's programme. Confirm the exact deadline, slot count and covered universities from the Chinese Embassy's Study in China page each year.

The Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) runs the country's largest scheme of free scholarships for technical and vocational study at pre-diploma, PCL/diploma and related levels. These are called classified (free) scholarships and are reserved for Nepali citizens from targeted groups: hard-up students from community and government schools, women, Dalit, Janajati (ethnic) groups, children of martyrs, former Kamaiya and Haliya, conflict victims, and other disadvantaged groups.

The structure is quota-based. Scholarship seats are broadly split between a general group and a targeted (reserved) group, and free seats are allocated in proportion to programme size, for example on the order of one free seat per 20 approved seats, scaling up for larger intakes. Selection is done within each province, and an applicant can generally apply to only one programme in one province, competing only against other applicants in that province.

Applicants who have passed the SEE (formerly SLC) from a government or community school apply online through CTEVT's examination and admission systems. Because seat counts, eligible categories and the exact provincial split change with each intake, the CTEVT quotas-and-scholarships page and the official examination portal are the authoritative sources for the current cycle.

Medical scholarships are governed by the National Medical Education Act, 2075 (2018) and administered by the Medical Education Commission (MEC). The Act reshaped how free MBBS/BDS seats are distributed: public educational institutions provide the largest share of free scholarships, with smaller mandated shares from medical colleges established with foreign and with domestic investment. At the undergraduate level, public institutions are required to reserve a high proportion of their seats as free-scholarship seats.

Entry to all scholarship and paying seats runs through a single common entrance test, the Medical Education Common Entrance Examination (MECEE-BL), after which MEC publishes a categorised seat allocation across colleges affiliated to Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu University and the health-science academies (BPKIHS, PAHS, KAHS). Scholarship seats include full and, in some institutions, partial scholarships, plus reservation seats for targeted groups. Overall MBBS/BDS seat numbers and the scholarship split are revised periodically by the Government of Nepal, so always check MEC's current-year seat notice for exact counts.

A defining feature of a government MBBS scholarship is the compulsory service bond. Under the Act, scholarship recipients must serve the Government of Nepal after graduation, typically split between remote and accessible districts, as a condition of the free education. Prospective applicants should factor this obligation in from the start, alongside the merit ranking required to secure a scholarship seat.