KARACHI, March 9: The Sindh Education department has decided to make a 50 per cent increase in the endowment fund awards meant for poor meritorious students, intending to take up graduate and post-graduate programmes at private institutions.
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees, Sindh Endowment Fund Board, held with Sindh Education Minister Irfanullah Marwat on Tuesday, it was resolved that an applicant could be given a maximum of Rs0.3 million in instalments, a source privy to the meeting said.
Sindh Education department had established an endowment fund with the initial allocation of Rs100 million to support meritorious students of the province in their studies in the fields of Business Administration/ Management and Information Technology.
Applications had been invited from students in September 2003, while after initial scrutiny of the documents, eligible candidates were interviewed by a sub-committee in December last.
Against the available 100 seats, the committee selected only 41 students as endowment fund beneficiaries, as the required amount for the fund could not be released as per plan of the department, the source added.
Since the department has received another Rs100 million from the Finance department, it is likely that about 100 students would be benefited from the scheme next time.
The meeting also approved the names of 41 students for graduate and post-graduate programmes in the Business Administration and Information Technology, a participant of the meeting said, adding that the scholarships covered the tuition fee for the academic session-2003.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Marwat said the Education department would invite applications for the scholarships again in June and July, this year, through national press.
He advised that interviews of candidates should be held at three places, including Karachi, Hyderabad and at a place suiting the candidates from interior of Sindh.
The minister said that all the selections would be made purely on the basis of merit and no other recommendations would be considered in this regard. He said that purpose of the endowment fund scholarships was to support talented but poor students, who could not bear the cost of higher education.
