The government will spend Rs 3 billion in establishing state-of-the-art centres of excellence in Nano-Science and Technology, said Professor Dr Atta-ur-Rahman, Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Thursday.
He was speaking at the opening session of a two-day symposium on Nano-Science and Technology organised by the Department of Physics, Comstech Institute of Information Technology and Comstech. He said the project will be able to exploit its full potential in the next 10 years.
Rahman told the participants that the only way to make our presence felt a nation in the global was a vigorous move towards a knowledge-based economy. That can only be achieved by tapping our vast reserve of human resources, he added.
He said that he was committed to widen access for students to quality institutions. He termed quality the major problem adding that HEC's major thrust has been improvement of quality of faculty through doctoral and post-doctoral studies abroad.
He informed the participants of the symposium of HEC's various programmes that over 500 students are provided scholarships annually to study in the best universities abroad. He informed that Pakistan has a 150 million dollar Fulbright Programme, the largest in the world, under which 640 students will study in Ivy League universities in the US. Students trained abroad would help in changing the academic landscape, he added.
Not only was HEC providing the means and opportunities to study abroad, its multi-pronged approach included creating a research-friendly environment in universities at home, said the Chairman. Under the Tenure Track System, faculty members were offered much higher salaries, while research and travel grants were also given to them. On the other hand, the Digital Library is at present offering over 20,000 research journals online apart from 4,000 e-books.
The latest initiative was the setting up of video conferencing facilities in public sector universities, which will make available interactive lectures in disciplines of basic as well as social sciences to students. Pakistan would thus become first country in the world to initiate such international video conferencing programme in its universities. The chairman invited the international speakers of the symposium to establish linkages between their universities and those in Pakistan 50 such linkages are being established with British universities.