LAHORE, Feb 19: The Higher Education Commission and the British Council are jointly launching a higher education links (HEL) programme to enhance research and training capacity of the institutions in the country.

The three-year link programme between the Pakistani and UK educational institutions will focus on wide subject areas, including engineering sciences, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, information technology, social sciences/management, agricultural sciences and health sciences.

In addition to these areas, the HEL programme will be open to all other subjects being offered at HEC recognized institutions in the country provided a willing UK partner institution, offering expertise in the same subject, can be identified. The links will generally be between departments rather than individuals or institutions.

The core objective of the HEC-BC's joint HEL programme is to strengthen institutional capacities of the higher education sector in the country. The link activities will hopefully lead to develop improved teaching methodologies, management systems within the departments, course and curriculum development, faculty development and higher education sector reform.

Meanwhile, the British Council, Lahore, on Thursday organized a HEC-BC higher education links workshop at a local hotel. Representatives from 15 higher education institutions in the province participated in the workshop.

British Council, Lahore, Director Dr Iftikhar Elahi said the workshop had been organized to train the potential link coordinators from local institutions on the methodology to fill application forms and find partner institutions in the UK.

He said the council would also help those institutions find a UK partner, which would fail to find an institution on their own. He added that the emphasis would remain on applied research.

In the first year, Dr Elahi said 15 programmes would be linked and reviewed on the basis of laid down objectives annually. He said the projects, which would not come up to the mark during the annual review process, would be discontinued.

Lahore College for Women University's faculty of science dean Dr Kausar J Cheema and Government College University's lecturer Masuma Farooki gave a Pakistani link coordinator's perspective.

Dr Faiz H Shah briefed the participants on the development of effective links proposals. BC's HEL manager Ayesha Shaukat and contract manager Fatima Moin also spoke on the occasion.