ISLAMABAD, Sept 20: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has announced reserved seats in the fields of medical and engineering for the students of Balochistan and Fata on open merit.

This was decided during a meeting with HEC executive director Prof Dr Sohail H. Naqvi in the chair.

The HEC has 29 reserved seats in the medical colleges of KP and around 50 seats in different engineering universities, including UET Lahore, UET Taxila, UET Peshawar, MUET Jamshoro and QUEST Nawabshah. The distribution of the seats will be at the ratio of 60:40 for the students of Balochistan and Fata.

The candidates for the seats would have to pass a test to be conducted through the National Testing Service Pakistan during the first week of October in Quetta, Peshawar, Islamabad and Karachi. The participants of the meeting said the step would give an opportunity to the students of Balochistan and Fata to equip themselves with professional education at the leading higher educational institutions of the country.

The meeting also decided that the current needs of Balochistan and Fata would be assessed in the higher education sector and future programmes would be chalked out accordingly.

During the last four years, the HEC has awarded 2,000 scholarships to students of Balochistan and Fata under a project called “Provision of higher education opportunities for Balochistan and Fata”.