LAHORE, Sept 8: The government’s cumbersome and lengthy procedures, poor performance of foreign missions and unavailability of information about public universities to the international media have been identified as major causes of limited number of admissions sought by foreign students in the local public sector universities.

This was the consensus among the public sector universities’ registrars, who met to discuss and devise a policy to attract foreign students in the Pakistani universities. The meeting was held at the Punjab University on Monday.

PU Vice-Chancellor Arshad Mahmood stressed that the universities should ensure provision of conducive environment on their campuses to attract foreign students. He claimed that the PU had improved the standards and quality of education that had increased the number of foreign students from 31 in 1999 to 65 this year.

The meeting, which was chaired by PU registrar Col Masoodul Haq, identified different bottlenecks that were discouraging foreign students to seek admissions to local public sector universities.

The participants suggested that the government should make universities’ fee structure attractive, encourage participation in educational fairs, open information centres abroad, grant talent awards to foreign students and assist universities in providing facilities to foreign students.

Besides, he said the universities should devise their curricula according to international standards, launch the most attractive academic programmes like tourism, and develop CDs containing information about all faculties and departments of the respective universities. The universities should also provide hostel accommodation of international standard, relax boarding rules, arrange separate messes, organize teaching in English medium and grant scholarships to foreign students.

They also suggested that one-window operation should be started to provide all relevant information to foreign students and encourage their participation in academic functions.

The suggestions would be forwarded to the government to prepare a policy to attract and facilitate foreign students.