Oxford fund to support Pakistani students

Islamabad: The Oxford Pakistan Programme (OPP) has said it is committed to investing in Pakistan’s education sector, establishing a long-term fund of support for Pakistani students, raising the profile of luminary Pakistani thinkers, developing UK-Pakistan relations, uplifting the British Pakistani community, and providing sol­utions to Pakistan’s de­v­­e­­lo­p­mental challenges.

The OPP’s members, including Prof Adeel Malik, Haroon Zaman, Dr Talha J Pirzada, Minahil Saqib and Dr Mohsin Javed, are part of an Oxford University delegation, which is currently in Pakistan. According to them, the OPP is the first initiative of its kind in any premier western academic institution that seeks to promote opportunities for young Pakistanis.

Prof Adeel Malik told a function here that the visit of the delegation, which also had the heads of two Oxford colleges, would help institutionalise and consolidate the OPP at Oxford. He said the programme represented an investment in the most talented Pakistani students, empowering them with access to the best teaching and research resources in the world, to allow them to develop themselves as well as be active leaders in global academia.

"We [OPP] are doing this through means-tested graduate scholarships and bursaries, as well as through research grants. In the first year of our two-year operation, we delivered five scholarships, enabling five students to take up courses such as mathematics, education and development economics at Oxford. In doing so, we are not just empowering the students but also their families and communities whom they can support and who they can act as points of inspiration for," he said. The OPP co-founder said the programme was generating support and energy for supporting Pakistani students, alongside research on Pakistan at Oxford.