Top USAID Official, Chairman HEC Meet Recipients of Merit & Needs-based Scholarships

DNA

Islamabad, Sep 7: The Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan hosted a meeting of Deputy Assistant Administrator USAID Ms. Maria Longi and Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed with a batch of 20 scholarship awardees of USAID-funded Merit and Needs-based Scholarship Program at HEC Secretariat on Wednesday.

Executive Director HEC Dr. Shaista Sohail, Acting Deputy Mission Director Mr. Yohannes Araya and Director Office of Education USAID Pakistan Ms. Anne Flaker also attended the meeting.

Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed appreciated USAID for providing Master’s scholarships to 700 female students to study in different disciplines in top 30 partner institutions of Pakistan. USAID has been supporting scholarships for meritorious but financially disadvantaged students for the last 18 years to assist Government of Pakistan’s efforts to raise access of enrolment of students, especially female students from rural and less developed districts, to study in engineering, business social sciences, agriculture and medicine degree programs in top Pakistani universities.

Ms. Maria Longi thanked HEC management for hosting the meeting and appreciated HEC for selecting the finest talent of Pakistan. She hoped that the scholarship recipients will bring positive change in their communities.        

Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed said, “The support of US government in various sectors of Pakistan, especially in the education sector, is commendable. The partnership has a legacy of 75 years now. It is through support and investment of partners like USAID that university education for many underprivileged students became accessible and it provided them a prospect to uplift themselves.”

“Pakistani students are very talented and under Erasmus Mundus scholarship program, which is very competitive, this year the highest number of students securing these scholarships are from Pakistan. So the US universities may also give more access to Pakistani students as there is no shortage of talent in Pakistan. The Government is very keen to support students to study in best universities of US.”

The Chairman congratulated the scholarship awardees who joined the meeting from Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Southern Punjab and Azad Jammu & Kashmir. The scholarship beneficiaries shared their experience and also apprised about the challenges they had faced during their journey towards higher education.

With the investment of $33.2 million, over 6000 needs-based scholarships have been awarded making it one of the largest USAID funded scholarship program of Pakistan. The Program has awarded 60% of scholarships to female students.