Cut in budget likely to force HEC to drop 80% of students

Source: The News

Date: July 24, 2010

A drastic cut in the annual budget is likely to force Higher Education Commission (HEC) to drop 80 per cent of students for foreign scholarships due to non-availability of required funds, sources told ‘The News’ here on Friday.

The data showed that HEC set a target to select 800 students for foreign scholarships in MS, MPhil leading to PhD in universities of US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Germany, France and Cuba.

The annual PSDP budget for the HEC has been reduced from Rs22.5 billion to Rs15.7 billion and now it is finding it difficult to provide required funds to 640 students for foreign scholarships.

Sources said that the HEC has now approached top government functionaries for provision of funds otherwise it would have no option except to deprive hundreds of students of their foreign scholarships.

An official said the scheme of foreign scholarships was initiated to supplement HEC’s efforts for provision of adequate number of trained PhD manpower that would ultimately help support technology upgrading, develop high standards of science and technology and meet growing challenges for national economy.

Link: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=252532