No Poverty

UNESA hosts fully funded KNB scholarship students from developing countries

UNESA SDGs Center · 20 October 2026

Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA) hosts students on the Kemitraan Negara Berkembang (KNB, Partnership for Developing Countries) scholarship, a fully funded Indonesian government scholarship for students from developing countries. UNESA's named 2025 cohort includes students from Chad and Tanzania, both World Bank low income countries, and India and Pakistan, both World Bank lower-middle income countries (draftrakyat.com, 2025; Kantor Urusan Internasional, 2026a), and UNESA again opened KNB registration for the 2026 intake (Kantor Urusan Internasional, 2026b).

Scheme offering free education, grants or scholarships to poor students from low/lower-middle income countries

Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA) supports students from developing countries, including low and lower-middle income countries, through the Kemitraan Negara Berkembang (KNB, Partnership for Developing Countries) government scholarship, which UNESA's Office of International Affairs (OIA) administers on campus. The scholarship, funded by Indonesia's Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi, Sains dan Teknologi), covers tuition, a living allowance, a book and research allowance, health insurance, immigration costs and international return airfare for students applying to bachelor's, master's and doctoral programmes across Indonesian universities including UNESA, so the student pays nothing (Kantor Urusan Internasional, 2026a).

On 13 and 15 October 2025, five KNB scholars studying at UNESA took part in a global engagement visit to SD Al Hikmah Surabaya: Mogatsabarwa K. Mosweu of Botswana, Roda Ningbiakhoih Mate of India, Talha Waheed of Pakistan, Ali Abakar Ben Abakar of Chad, and Rajab Hamis Yusuph of Tanzania (draftrakyat.com, 2025). Checked against the World Bank's fiscal year 2027 income classification (low income up to 1,175 US dollars GNI per capita in 2025, lower-middle income 1,176 to 4,635 US dollars), Chad and Tanzania are low income countries and India and Pakistan are lower-middle income countries; Botswana is upper-middle income and its student does not count toward this indicator.

UNESA's international office again opened KNB registration for the 2026 intake from 2 February to 31 March 2026, continuing the scheme into the second year of this cycle (Kantor Urusan Internasional, 2026b).

The scheme is free to the student and open to applicants from developing countries worldwide, and UNESA's named 2025 cohort shows it reaching students from at least two World Bank low income and two lower-middle income countries specifically.