ISLAMABAD: A Senate special committee on Wednesday directed the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and other ministries concerned to provide exact number of foreign scholarships which lapsed during the last four years.

The special committee met here at Parliament House with Senator Syed Muzafar Hussain Shah in the chair.

The funds were allegedly lapsed due to lack of coordination between various ministries, sources said.

At present, five ministries/division including Higher Education Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Economic Affairs Divisions, Ministry of Inter- Provincial Coordination, Ministry of Federal Education and foreign embassies, give foreign scholarships.

The committee noticed with concern that Foreign Office, Economic Affairs Division and IPC had not made any coordinated move to distribute the scholarships among students.

“The committee should fix the responsibility, this is a serious issue,” said Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq.

The HEC Executive Director, Raza Bhatti, told the committee that during the last four year, the HEC had processed 1,457 foreign funded scholarships. He, however, told the committee that several ministries are involved in scholarships issue, so commission did not have any mechanism to keep the record of scholarships lapsed in four years.

The ED told the committee that except for Commonwealth Scholarships, all foreign scholarship offered by different countries were communicated to the HEC by the ministry of foreign affairs, or the economic affairs division upon receipt of offer by them from the donor agency.

He said after receiving offers, the HEC advertised the scholarships on its website.

The ED said that merit list is prepared in accordance with the criteria prescribed by the donor agency. He said the foreign funded scholarships were normally offered on bilateral basis and the award of scholarship was solely made by the corresponding donor agency from the pool of nomination received therefore.

He said that all the subsequent coordination with the scholarship awardees is carried out by the donor of the relevant Ministry and HEC has no further role in this respect.

The committee members showed their concerns over, what they termed lack of coordination between the ministries. They recommended that the scholarships should be dealt by one ministry. The committee recommended that a proper mechanism need to be evolved and directed the HEC to submit its report.

The committee will again take up the matter in its next meeting.

The meeting was attended by Senators Hidayatullah, Ayesha Raza Farooq, Kareem Ahmed Khwaja, Syed Shibli Faraz and Mohammad Daud Khan Achakzai and officials of Foreign office, HEC and Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2015

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