October 28, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 1, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Monday told the National Assembly that the government has increased the number of scholarships for talented students to study in China.

The prime minister during the question hour in the house, suddenly rose to inform that the government was pursuing a policy to increase the number of scholarships by reviving various schemes, especially for higher education.

All the Pakistani missions in different countries have been asked to find out the availability of scholarships in the respective countries so that talented students could benefit from these opportunities. Moreover, these embassies have also been asked to look into the difficulties of Pakistani schools so that the expatriates could get good education.

Mr Jamali cited an example of his recent visit to Iran during which he found a Pakistani school in Tehran in a bad shape due to financial constraints. The prime minister announced $100,000 for the assistance of the school so that the students could continue their education without any difficulty.

He said his government had given priority to education and increased the budget of the education sector to improve literacy rate.

Earlier, in reply to questions about involvement of parliamentarians in the development of schemes for new schools and upgradation of the existing ones, Education Minister Zobaida Jalal assured the house that she would talk to the four chief ministers and provincial educations ministers in this regard.

Speaker National Assembly Chaudhry Amir Hussain at one time suggested the minister to use the advisory role which the federal government enjoyed over the provincial government after she said that the federal government could not interfere in the affairs of the provincial governments.

The speaker also asked the minister to ensure involvement of the members in the next development meeting where the district education plans would be made. She said her ministry would find out a way while remaining within the legal system.

To a question raised by Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhary, the minister said the facility of air ticket, subsidy and thesis charges had not been withdrawn for students who were studying abroad under the cultural exchange programme since May 28, 1998.

The government has already revived the cultural exchange scholarship and Commonwealth scholarship programmes from the year 2001, she said.

She informed the house that the government had also increased the amount of scholarship to $300 for PhD and $200 for Master levels per month. However, the education ministry does not provide scholarships to cadets of the armed forces.

She said the government had allocated Rs4.4 billion during the year 2003-04 for the development purpose in the education sector, out of which Rs242.79 million had already been released.

She said out of the 39 public sector universities, which were being provided recurring grant, 12 were new and they would be allocated grants from the current financial year.

She said the government was not considering any proposal to admit Hafiz-i-Quran students having primary education directly to class 8th in the federal government institutions, including model colleges. However, even the present Hafiz-i-Quran students having primary qualification were being accommodated in their respective classes once they finished their Hifz course and joined the institutions.