A visiting delegation from a Chinese university has surprised its Dunedin hosts by offering 10 local students scholarships to a summer school in Shanghai.
Five will be kept for students from Otago Polytechnic and five for students from the University of Otago.
Students will have to pay their own air fares but the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade university will meet the cost of accommodation, tuition fees, cultural activities, field trips and textbooks at the four-week summer school.
Otago Polytechnic marketing, communications and customer relations general manager Mike Waddell estimated the scholarships could each be worth $8000 to $10,000.
The university, located east of Shanghai, has about 11,000 students, including about 600 from other countries. A six-person delegation visited Otago Polytechnic on Friday.
Mr Waddell said staff were taken by surprise when the scholarships were announced.
"We knew they had 40 scholarships available across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. For Dunedin to get one quarter of those is excellent.
University international pro-vice-chancellor Prof Sarah Todd said the institute had made "a very generous offer".
Dunedin and Shanghai are sister cities. In 2006, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the polytechnic, university and Dunedin City Council and the Shanghai Education Commission, the municipal government department which administers 16 tertiary institutions and 4500 primary and secondary schools.
The summer school, from mid-June to mid-July, covers introductory Chinese lessons and lectures in English focusing on business, economics and Chinese culture, as well as field trips and cultural experiences.
Polytechnic and university staff had been asked to select recipients from their respective institutions and that work would have to begin soon, Mr Waddell said.
Prof Todd said exams in mid to late June might be a deterrent to some university applicants but she was confident demand for scholarships would be high.