News Desk
MALE’ — Four Maldivian students will leave home this year to begin two-year international programmes at United World Colleges in Japan, Armenia, Eswatini and the United States, selected through a scholarship programme that has been quietly sending Maldivian teenagers to some of the world’s most distinctive secondary schools since 2001.
The students are Fathimath Sasha Farhath from Ghazee School, who will study at UWC ISAK in Japan; Fathimath Faariha Fayaz from Aminiyya School, heading to UWC Dilijan in Armenia; Ji’an Ahmed Saeed from Aminiyya School, placed at UWC Waterford Kamhlaba in Eswatini; and Aminath Ula Ahmed from Finland International School, who will attend UWC USA in New Mexico.
Each will complete a two-year International Baccalaureate diploma, a qualification recognised by universities worldwide and by the Maldives Qualifications Authority as equivalent to A-levels. The IB’s reputation for academic rigour and its emphasis on critical thinking, community service and international-mindedness makes it a strong foundation for university applications anywhere in the world.
The United World Colleges network spans 18 colleges across four continents, united by a shared mission of using education as a force for peace and international understanding. Students at each college live and study alongside peers from dozens of countries, an experience that sets the UWC model apart from conventional international schooling. The curriculum is the same IB diploma found elsewhere, but the environment in which it is delivered, deliberately diverse, residential and designed to build cross-cultural relationships, is the institution’s defining feature.
In the Maldives, the national selection committee is UWC Maldives, which runs the scholarship programme with the support of Alifulu Thuthu Foundation, a local education NGO, and the UWC International Organisation. The programme is open each year to students who have completed Grade 10, and the selection process is competitive.
Since 2001, more than 70 Maldivian students have received these scholarships. The track record of what happens after is striking. Almost all of those who completed the two-year UWC programme went on to secure further scholarships for university, the majority of them at American institutions. Two students who finished their programmes in Germany and China in May have already won university places in the United States. Three current Maldivian scholars are studying at UWC colleges in Canada, India and Hong Kong.
For a country where higher education opportunities have historically required families to navigate overseas systems largely on their own, the programme offers something less common: a structured pathway that begins at sixteen and tends to open doors that stay open.
The four students selected this year will begin their programmes later in the year. They leave as teenagers from Male’ schools. If the pattern holds, they will return as something considerably more.
