Students throng The News Education Expo on last day

A large number of people, including students and teachers, continued to visit ‘The News Education Expo 2019’ at the Karachi Expo Centre on its second and the last day on Sunday.

Throughout the day, the Hall 2 of the Expo Centre was thronged by young students willing to inquire about higher education opportunities at various varsities in Pakistan and foreign countries.

Ali Shaheen, a young graduate of law from the University of Karachi, wanted to inquire about the opportunities of law studies abroad. “I want to study labour law,” he said. “In Pakistan there’s a huge room to work on this subject.”

Shaheen received help from Shabahat Asghar of the Campus France, which is being managed by the French embassy in Pakistan and has its head office in Paris. Asghar said his organisation had participated in the exhibition to create awareness about opportunities of higher education in France.

The representatives of the educational institutions at the stalls answered queries of the visitors and provided them information related to their academic programmes, fee structure, scholarships and career counseling in the two-day event.

“Students in Pakistan have several misconceptions regarding the education system,” said a representative of Hamdard University, Shahid Umer, at his stall. “We are here to address such issues. We are guiding students about the fees structure of our varsity, and the scholarships the institution offers for different programmes,” he said and added that more than 500 students had visited their stall in two days.

Sumbul, who has recently taken her intermediate examinations in Karachi, arrived at the event with her father. “I want to study medicine,” she said, adding that she was concerned over limited seats at the government-run medical universities.

“The fee structure of private universities is so high that a middle class family simply cannot afford it,” she said. She explained that she had come to the event to gather information about scholarship programmes of the private medical universities. “Such events help us find good universities.”

The educational event, which lasted for two days, was inaugurated by Sarmad Ali of the Jang Media Group on Saturday. Various universities, degree-awarding institutes and educational organisations set up around 80 stalls at the event to provide information about their educational programmes to prospective students.