The government of Pakistan has constituted a scholarship fund worth rupees one billion for the deserving students keen to seek admission to prestigious institutions of higher learning across the country on the basis of merit. This was stated by Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Professor Atta-ur-Rehman while addressing the inaugural session of the first international seminar and intensive course, "Foundations of moral thought: from the Greeks to contemporary bio-ethics" here on Monday. He cited the fund an attempt to integrate the society.
The seminar and course have been organised by the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Culture, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT).
Registering his serious concern regarding the rampant fragmentation in the society on the basis of class and status, he said that the government, realising its responsibility, had attempted to provide equal opportunities to all the deserving students.
Now a student coming from any background or social status would not be denied admission to the private sector institutions of repute like the Fast, Lums, Nust etc due to paucity of funds, he said, adding the sole criterion to acquire the scholarship would be merit.
Highlighting the importance of research with focus on ethics, he said the HEC, taking stock of the very fact, was mainly attempting to inculcate the very spirit among local students and young researchers registered with local universities.
According to him, one of the major programmes of the HEC is to establish linkage between Pakistan-based institutions with research centres functioning in the developed world.
One of the very programmes was said to have exclusive linkages with the British universities under which 15 such linkages had already been developed while 35 more would be established by the end of current year.
"Entire programme is being funded by the government, but facilitated through the British Council," the HEC Chairman said.
Professor Dr Atta also referred to a "mega linkage programme" for institutions of higher education in the country with funds worth 1,000 million dollars under which not only all the universities would be linked to one another, but would also be supported to acquire sophisticated equipment and relevant facilities - ultimately paving the way for hi-tech infrastructure.
He also referred to the establishment of the country's huge digital library, offering local researchers and students access to no less than 17,000 full text journals.
The government was paying for the establishment and recurring expenditure for the facility, which was being made accessible to local researchers with no fee, the HEC Chairman elaborated.
He also mentioning the country's own satellite, placed in right slot while he was minister incharge of the information technology (IT) affairs, was being used for making it workable.
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