ISLAMABAD: The upper house of the parliament on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with eight federal universities, offering internship to their students.

Under its Parliamentary Education Programme, 10 students each from the eight universities will be given opportunity to see legislation at Senate and interact with the lawmakers.

Secretary Senate Amjed Pervez and representatives of eight universities signed the MOU at a ceremony which held here in Senate. The senate chairman, Mian Raza Rabbani, graced the occasion as chief guest.

Under the agreement, students will be given chance to work at Senate for two to six months.

The Senate chairman while terming the event as milestone, said during their internship period students would not only have a chance to interact with lawmakers but see legislation as well. The Senate chairman said across the world, parliaments had think-tanks comprising academia and experts.

“For making the parliament more effective, there should be a close coordination between the parliament and the civil society,” he said.

Senators, one each, from all political parties attended the signing ceremony.

Following eight universities signed agreement with Senate: Air University, National University of Modern Languages (Numl), International Islamic University, Islamabad (IIUI), Nust, PIDE, Quaid-i-Azam University, National Defence University (NDU) and Ripha International University.

During the MoU ceremony, the announcement of stipend was not made, however, later on a spokesman of NUML said that interns will be paid Rs1,200 per month as stipend.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2015