HEC announces reserved seats for students of Balochistan, FATA
21 September, 2012
ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has decided to announce reserved seats in the fields of medical and engineering for the students of Balochistan and FATA on open merit and self-finance basis. It was decided during a special meeting held at HEC Islamabad. The meeting was presided over by HEC Executive Director Prof Dr Sohail H Naqvi. HEC has reserved 29 medical seats in the medical colleges of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and around 50 seats in different engineering universities, including UET Lahore, UET Taxila, UET Peshawar, MUET Jamshoro, and QUEST Nawabshah. The distribution of seats would be based on 60:40 ratio for the students of Balochistan and FATA, respectively. The test of the potential candidates would be conducted though the National Testing Service (NTS) during the first week of October at Quetta, Peshawar, Islamabad and Karachi. The participants of the meeting lauded the efforts of HEC for promotion of higher education in Balochistan and FATA. The officials were of the view that this step would provide the students of Balochistan and FATA an opportunity to equip themselves with professional education at the leading higher education institutions of the country. During the meeting, it was also decided that current needs of Balochistan and FATA in higher education sector would be assessed and future programmes would be chalked out accordingly. Since its inception, HEC has paid special attention towards promoting higher education in Balochistan. The main initiatives include special scholarship schemes for the faculty and youth of Balochistan, implementation of federal government's quota policy in award of local and foreign scholarships, and establishment of well-equipped HEC regional centre at Quetta. The other steps included increase in number of universities from two to seven, including first women university of Balochistan, and launching of special projects for the development of basic infrastructure at higher education institutions of the province, including labs, class rooms, seminar rooms, labs, transport facilities, digital libraries and video-conferencing facilities. HEC has already awarded 2,000 scholarships to students of Balochistan and FATA under the project "Provision of Higher Education Opportunities for Balochistan and FATA" during the last four years. Under second and new phase of the project, 1500 scholarships would be awarded to the students of the Balochistan and FATA. HEC has also arranged foundation course for 684 students of Balochistan, at Quetta. At least 66 scholars have completed their studies until now and of these seven from Balochistan have shown outstanding performances and have clinched gold medals from leading universities of the country, including COMSATS, NUST, GC University Lahore and University of Balochistan. Recently, 600 Master's-leading-to-PhD scholarships for the natives of Balochistan have been announced under the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package at the cost of Rs 3138.692 million. The project is focused towards providing opportunities for access to higher education to financially constrained youth of Balochistan who, despite possessing academic merit, are unable to continue their studies. End.
|
