The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is giving special attention to the remote areas of the country by providing all possible facilities to the local students for pursuing higher education.
A press release issued here on Thursday said that the projects initiated by the HEC for universities of Southern Punjab would help meet the manpower demand of the public and private sector. It said that programmes in this regard would result in improving the productivity level, incomes of the community and quality of social life.
It is also consonant with the present government's agenda for improving the quality of life of the people of Pakistan in general and residents of hitherto neglected areas of southern Punjab in particular, the press release added.
Under these projects, the HEC would provide sufficient facilities to Islamia University Bahawalpur regarding networking of the university, provision of foreign faculty, construction of hostels, lab & library equipment's etc.
For these colleges a reasonable number of foreign scholarships for Ph.D, strengthening of teaching & research facilities, up-gradation of labs and libraries and construction of the infrastructure were also being initiated, it added. For all these facilities the HEC had allocated a huge sum of Rs 1602.470 million to be provided within this academic year.
Similarly university of Bahauddin Zakaria Multan is also been strengthened and being expanded by establishment of the its two sub-campuses at Sahiwal and Dera Ghazi Khan. In same way the networking of the university has been completed, library and lab equipment has been provided; centres and institutes of mass communication, biotechnology and advance material sciences have established, Colleges of Engineering Agriculture and department of Saraikee language have been started.
This marks a sincere effort of the HEC for improvement in the quality of life of the people of Southern Punjab by extending higher education facilities closer to their homes. It is expected that the youth of these areas will thus be able to positively contribute and play their effective roles in the socio-economic development of the country.