LAHORE: The Higher Education Commission, Pakistan, is planning to introduce British Council’s Active Citizen Programme (ACP) in 42 universities across the country.

In the years to come, universities will be implementing ACP in the curriculum as a mandatory course for undergraduates as it is being adopted at the Lahore College for Women’s University (LCWU).

HEC Chairman Prof Dr Mukhtar Ahmed made this announcement at a ceremony organised jointly by the British Council and the LCWU on Wednesday.

He said the HEC would launch the Social Enterprise Resource Centre in the university this year for the students to enhance their social entrepreneurship skills to enable them to provide sustainable income resource generation within the local communities with which they engage.

LCWU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Sabiha Mansoor said the community engagement was one of the pillars of the varsity vision and the British Council’s support in introducing the ACP as a pilot programme was a welcome initiative. She said the programme helped the students groom their personality and impact their households and communities positively.

She said the varsity’s Directorate of Faculty Development and Internationalisation had completed the second phase of ACP in 2013-14.

She said the LCWU-ACP students had so far implemented some 135 community social action projects under the supervision of 72 faculty facilitators from 16 departments trained by the British Council.

British Council CEO Cerian Devane praised university students and faculty for implementing community engagement activities as a mandatory component of the undergraduate degree.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2015

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