February 8, 2006	Wednesday	Muharram 9, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman Dr Ataur Rehman on Tuesday directed vice chancellors and rectors of the public sector universities to follow the Supreme court ruling on grace marks.

The Supreme Court only recently had ruled that “the practice of grace marks should be discontinued.” Dr Rehman was of the view that the Supreme Court had termed the culture of seeking and granting grace marks a clear violation of the principles of good governance, which would promote substandard education.

He said it had been observed that the Kind Edward Medical University, Lahore, in the process of admission, had been giving additional weightage to those students who had certain religious proficiencies.

It was understood that this is done for Muslim students but not for other religions. Such discrimination violated the basic principles of merit.

It had been the policy of the government to give admissions without any consideration of colour, race or religion, the Chairman, HEC added.

Meanwhile, the HEC has announced post doctoral fellowships (Phase-II) programme for the faculty of public & private sector universities, degree awarding institutions and R&D organizations of the country.

These fellowships have been launched to refurbish their research horizon through post doctoral research opportunity in advanced countries.

The HEC has announced that the applicants should be a PhD holders, maximum 50 years of age and regular employees of HEC recognized public & private sector universities or HEC recognized centres of excellence, area study centres, Pakistan study centres, degree awarding institutions or public sector R&D organizations. The candidates have been asked to submit clearly written research proposals, relevant to their current jobs/institutions having recommendations of their employer.

The applicants should also submit documentary evidence of research proposal being approved by the host university as well as documentary evidence of placement in a well established or renowned host university situated in any advanced country of the world. Duration of the fellowship will be 9 to 12 months.