26 February 2004	Thursday	05 Muharram 1425

ISLAMABAD, Feb 25: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has set up a core group for the promotion of life sciences in public- sector universities of the country.

The core group will be responsible for endeavouring to define certain measures, which need to be taken in order to significantly improve teaching and research in biological sciences at graduate and postgraduate levels, an official statement said.

The major objectives of the core group not only include promotion of teaching and research in biology but also identification of areas in biology which have a major impact on the economic well-being of the country. The group will also prepare major projects for the sustained development of human resource in biosciences.

During the recently-held meeting of the core group, Dr S. Sohail H. Naqvi, member (HRD) HEC; and Zarrin Siddiqui, D.G. HEC, apprised the participants of HEC's new developments and an overview of the programme.

A secretariat has already been established at the HEC for the purpose of facilitating the project. Dr Shahzad Mufti, an eminent scientist, introduced major themes that the core group had identified for the promotion of biosciences in the universities of Pakistan.

The group will work on projects, including curriculum development, teacher-training, distant learning, equipping laboratories and research funding in biological sciences.

Meanwhile, the commission has also decided to launch a programme for master trainers in the discipline of physics in Quaid-i-Azam University. Through this project, master trainers would be trained, in the first instance at QAU, and then these master trainers would train college/university teachers at their teaching place.

Resource persons would be selected from among the serving as well as retired personnel in the field of physics out of those people available in the country or working abroad.

Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) has a strong physics department equipped with laboratories, research library alongwith professional and devoted faculty. All facilities required for master trainers are available with the physics department, QAU.