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Offline fizza bano

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PhD scholars’ future uncertain
« on: October 19, 2010, 11:20:24 AM »
PhD scholars’ future uncertain
ISLAMABAD: The future of over 400 students selected for Ph D from abroad is uncertain, as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has delayed their departure for various international universities due to reported paucity of funds while the deadlocks seem to linger on between HEC and Ministry of Finance.

A well-placed HEC official told Daily Times that every coming day was getting harder for the Commission in terms of affording monthly finances of the students.

He revealed that, in a number of cases, the stipends were sent to the students with three to four months delay adding “We could hardly do anything in this regard, as the government is not releasing money for the purpose.”

Sources said the travel of 200 students in September to join their universities in France, Italy, Germany, Thailand, Austria and England was planned when the HEC asked them to wait.

Dropping the hammer in a recently held meeting, Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh informed the HEC that the government had no funds for scholarships.

“We had no option but to stop them (the 200 students) from flying to their universities,” said HEC official.

The sholars were asked to wait for one year, but everything depended upon the government funding for HEC, he said adding the government’s cut in the HEC’s development grants severely disrupted its ongoing and future scholarship schemes.

He said over 2,700 students in the last two years could not go for their higher studies under different HEC scholarship programmes due to funds’ shortage.

According to an official, the HEC has stopped processing applications for the 2,000 approved scholarship slots in foreign universities in addition to 1,700 such opportunities in government-run universities of the country.

Moreover, the HEC had to abandon its proposals under which 4,000 scholarships were to be offered to best Pakistani students for studies in top world universities, said the sources.

With development grants being continuously squeezed, HEC has put on its future scholarship schemes for a time being, sources told Daily Times.

Since 2002, the HEC had spent over Rs20 billion on its human resource development programme, which covers all its scholarship schemes. It has awarded 13,436 scholarships, of which 5,765 scholars went to foreign universities.

When interviewed, the students said the HEC had advertised the Overseas Scholarship Scheme and assured them that the federal government had approved the funding for their projects but despite of receiving final award letters from foreign universities, funds’ provision was delayed which, they added, was shocking for them.

A scholar from Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) said such a situation would tarnish the country’s image in foreign universities. She urged the government to look into the matter and save the scholars from educational disaster.

“This is not for the first time that HEC delayed scholarship schemes. Last year too, the Commission cancelled Ph D scholarships on the pretest of lack of funding,” she said.

Tahir Mehmood, an aspirant for MSc leading to PhD scholarship programme, said despite being a top scorer in the mandatory written exam his plan for higher studies had hit snags. “I was all set to fulfill my dream of PhD in a UK university, but my name was dropped from the list.”

In view of fund crisis, HEC looked for foreign universities where they could put scholars without paying any tuition fee but failed. Students, however, were given different reasons for dropping them, he claimed.

Sohail Naqvi, HEC Executive Director, said the departure of scholars had been delayed due to paucity of funds adding the HEC was aware of the fact that few of Ph D scholars resigned but the HEC could not do anything unless getting funds.

He said the HEC received two installments of Rs1.2 billion and Rs3.2 billion which would finance development work in universities, paying salaries to teachers and fees of students already studying abroad on scholarship.

“The meager allocation will not resolve our problems and fiscal constraints will continuously haunt us,” said Dr Naqvi.

Dr Naqvi highlighted that 5,000 doctoral students were studying abroad while 4,000 were pursuing Ph D at local universities.

HEC Chairman Javed Legahri said the country needed 20,000 Ph. D scholars to serve nation at present. He urged the government to support high education in this regard. He said Pakistan had over 9000 Ph D scholars abroad under HEC funding while many others were on self-finance basis. He said the HEC along with government support could produce better result in education sector.