Punjab Higher Education Department to distribute 50,000 Scholarships in 2017

The Punjab Higher Education Department will distribute 50,000 more scholarships in 2017 and the volume of Punjab Educational Endowment Fund will reach Rs11 billion.

Provincial Minister for Higher Education Begum Zakia Shahnawaz presided over a review meeting here today regarding distribution of scholarships among poor and talented students in nine divisional headquarters under Punjab Educational Endowment Fund.

PEEF Vice Chairman Dr Amjad Saqib gave a briefing on the programme of Punjab Educational Endowment Fund Campaign 2016. He said that the focus of the programme was talented students of low-income families of backward areas who cannot continue their studies due to financial problems. He said the Punjab Educational Endowment Fund would reach out to such students and provide them an opportunity to benefit from the revolutionary programme of the provincial government. He said that students of Gilgit, FATA, Azad Kashmir and Balochistan could also benefit from it.

Dr Amjad Saqib said the Higher Education Department provided 150,000 scholarships worth Rs7.45 billion till June 2016. He said that Punjab Higher Education Department was evolving a publicity campaigns on the programme at public level and students, their parents, teachers, philanthropists, political leadership, civil society and mediamen would also be included in the campaigns. Provincial Minister Zakia Shahnawaz while giving approval to the programme directed to send its summary immediately to the chief minister. She said that the programme would help talented children.

She said the programme would also help in poverty alleviation. Provincial Secretary Higher Education Capt. (R) Dr. Naseem Nawaz, Additional DIG Operations Shahzada Sultan, Special Secretary Higher Education Tahir Yousaf, Dr. Kamran Shamas, Deputy Secretary Information Admin. Hina Pervaiz and Deputy Secretary Higher Education Irtiza Naqvi attended the meeting.

Workshop: The stakeholder consultation workshop on Water Resources Management organised by the Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Engineering of the University of Engineering & Technology (UET) in the collaboration with STEDEC Technology Commercialisation Corporation of Pakistan was held here on Monday.

Renowned experts from across Pakistan attended the workshop while Federal Minister for Science & Technology and Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain was the chief guest on the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, Rana Tanveer Hussain said government was fully determined to promote science and technology to strengthen the institutions. He added research in water management was the need of the hour to manage the water resources in efficient manner in order to fulfill the needs of country in agriculture and other sectors.

The federal minister said new model of sharing expertise and other techniques was bringing fruitful results. He also assured that all practical recommendations coming from the stakeholders in the workshops would be supported by the Ministry for Science and Technology.

Earlier, UET Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Fazal A. Khalid said universities not only produced human resources but also promoted research and commercialisation to resolve the issues on scientific grounds.

Managing Director STEDEC Technology Commercialisation Corporation of Pakistan Syed Raza Abbas Shah said the prime objective of STEDEC was to provide cooperation to indigenous research organisations vis-à-vis commercialisation of their products, alternate imports and enhance the exports capacity for economic growth of Pakistan.