HEC plans to give 700 scholarships to FATA, Balochistan students

Islamabad: According to the private news source, the higher education commission of Pakistan decides to grant 700 scholarships to the aspirants of Balochistan as well as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

As per the details, under Phase-II of the project Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Scholarships for the aspirants of Balochistan as well as FATA, the commission decided to grant 700 scholarships to the registered students of postgraduate and undergraduate level in the government sector educational institutes.

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Underneath this project, higher education commission has allocated approximately 3,900 post-graduate and under-graduate scholarships. Out of these total scholarships, 700 scholarships were awarded last year.

For this reason, HEC has allocated Rs 274 million. The abovementioned scholarships contained both national and international scholarships.

As per the chairperson of higher education commission, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, there is a huge space among the demand and the actual number of PhD scholars in Pakistan.

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"To fill this space, higher education commission is utilizing all the sources and that’s the reason we allotted a huge number of scholarships in the country, particularly in FATA and Balochistan," he added.

Besides Balochistan and FATA, the higher education commission has also included some other scholarships in the proposal.

It launched a Pak-USAID merit and need-based scholarship programme at the cost of approximately Rs 2,954.8 million.

Likewise, the higher education commission also started Phase II of oversees scholarships for MS/MPhil leading to the PhD for which it gave Rs 330 million.

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According per another senior representative of HEC, as the country is facing a severe shortage of PhD scholars, the commission is making its greatest efforts to overcome this deficiency. For this reason, he said 5,000 PhD fellowships will be offered in the present year and for the reason Rs 175 million has already been allocated.