ISLAMABAD, July 21: The government’s Central Development Working Party (CDWP) has approved a scheme of the Higher Education Commission to provide PhD fellowships to 5,000 scholars in the country.

The scheme was approved at a meeting of the CDWP held at the Planning Commission, in Islamabad.

The main objective of the project, to be completed in eight years, is to award scholarships to a total of 5,000 students in different batches.

As many as 1,000 PhD scholars will be awarded in the first year to Batch 1. Starting from September 2003, the students will initially be enrolled in the respective MPhil/MS (engineering) programmes at public sector universities which lead to PhD degrees.

The scheme has been formulated to stimulate research and development activities in public sector universities of the country and to create a critical mass of highly qualified human resources in all the disciplines being taught at the advanced levels in the world.

Through the scheme, qualified academician and researchers will improve their research and development potentials. The project will enhance training potentials of universities, both in the public as well as private sectors, and be capable to feed all the sectors of development of the country including the industrial sector.

The scheme will promote MPhil/MS (engineering) and PhD courses and research work in all fields. The MPhil, MS (engineering) and PhD students will work on problems of interest to Pakistan and address social and economical problems critical to the country’s development.

The scheme has been announced by the HEC recently and applications for 1,000 scholarships (1st batch) from interested students of all fields have been invited for award of these scholarships after a peer review of the applications submitted.