Afghan delegation visits HEC

Islamabad

A delegation of media persons and a few academics from Afghanistan, which is on a week-long visit to Pakistan, visited Higher Education Commission (HEC) Secretariat on Tuesday.

Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed welcomed the delegation and briefed them about development of Pakistan’s higher education sector during the last decade. He elaborated different steps taken for a strengthening quality assurance system in higher education sector across Pakistan. The chairman talked about different initiatives of HEC for human resource development and promotion of research that has brought about tremendous progress in the sector.

“Through different schemes for overseas, indigenous, need-based scholarships as well as Prime Minister’s Fee Reimbursement Scheme over 200,000 faculty and students have been given scholarships. The more we invest in youth, the more we ensure development of the country,” he said.

The Chairman said HEC has been playing an active role in increasing equitable access to quality higher education and encouraging relevant research activities. Underlining the strong connection of academia with rapid technological advancement and ongoing digitization process, he said that HEC has taken a number of measures for growth of ICT in the country.

“In this sphere, HEC has taken various initiatives including establishment of Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN), Digital Library, and Cloud Data Centre. He maintained that HEC evolved Smart University concept in view of future challenges and opportunities in the higher education sector,” he said adding that HEC has set up Offices of Research, Innovation and Commercialization as well as Business and Technology Incubation Centres in many universities in the country.

Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed said that Pakistan and Afghanistan are brotherly countries. He informed the delegates that the Government of Pakistan, in Phase-I, offered 3000 scholarships to Afghan youth for their capacity building of which over 600 have completed and returned to Afghanistan, the remaining are still studying. He further said that 3000 more scholarships will be offered through Allama Iqbal Scholarship Programme, the second phase of the project that will be launched in April.

He said that the recently signed Document of Understanding (DoU) between two countries aims to devise a legal framework for collaboration in higher education sector. He also mentioned that a ceremony was held in Islamabad in February in the honour of Afghan students, which was presided over by the President of Pakistan and special Afghan delegation was invited which was headed by Minister of Higher Education and around 800 Afghan students attended the ceremony.

He said that the purpose of these scholarships is to provide Afghan students opportunities of acquiring higher education which are being extended to Pakistani students and develop and progress jointly. He observed that the region has been facing a great ‘human tragedy’ during the last many decades, however the two nations have fought the unrest and chaos courageously. He stressed the need for promoting mutual trust help each other in all possible ways.