KARACHI, Aug 31: A five-day national chemistry talent contest for HSC or 'A' level students will begin on Wednesday at the HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi.

Briefing media men on Tuesday, the acting director of HEJ institute, Dr M Iqbal, said the contest was being held as part of the national programme meant for finding out talented students in various disciplines of basic sciences, including Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics in addition to Physics.

The final round of the competition was aimed at identifying five students from all over Pakistan, who would participate in the International Chemistry Olympiad in 2006, he added.

Pakistan had first participated in the 32nd International Physics Olympiad held in Turkey in 2001. Pakistani students have so far participated in three Physics Olympiads and their performance has been quite encouraging, he added, and hoped that talented students would prove their worth in the Chemistry discipline as well.

He said that the two-stage national competition in Chemistry and other disciplines was launched by the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 1995, adding the government was trying to increase the capacity and human resources in this discipline as well. He said that the importance of Chemical Sciences in national development cannot be denied.

He further said that the five-day competition was aimed at providing contact between scientists and students and to promote the interest and influence of scientists.

The first round of the chemistry contest, along with contests in other three disciplines, was held in February. About 50 students were selected for Chemistry. These would now be participating in the final round at Karachi, being held jointly by the Higher Education Commission, International Centre for Chemical Sciences, and National Core Group in Chemistry.

Meanwhile, Dr Choudhary said that the HEJ institute had with the efforts of Dr Atta-ur-Rehman received an award of $100,000 from the Islamic Development Bank. More than 140 institutions from 56 Muslim countries were seeking the award.

The organizing secretary of the Chemistry contest, Dr Khalid M Khan, said the 50 students participating in the contest belonged to various educational institutions of Peshawar, Mianwali, Haripur, Lahore, Karachi, Bahawalpur, Rawalpindi, Kohat, Attock, Sargodha and Islamabad. He said that there was a lot of out of classroom activities for students during the five-day camp at Karachi.

Besides lectures by Dr Iqbal Choudhary, Dr Farzana Latif Ansari, Dr M Iqbal Bhangar, Shahid Lutfi and Azhar Siddiqui, students would be given a written examination, quiz competition. They would also be taken out for visits to Mazar-i-Quaid, a PVC plant at Bin Qasim, pharmaceutical laboratories and the planetarium in Gulshan-e-Iqbal.