KARACHI, Jan 31: Yet an another international education exhibition, organized by the Dawn Group of Newspapers, concluded here on Tuesday, after providing thousands of students an opportunity to have first-hand information on various academic programmes available abroad.

The two-day exhibition, Dawn Education Expo 2006, an annual feature, was held for the third time in the megapolis consecutively. The venue was Karachi Expo Centre, which, according to a coordinator for the exhibition, was visited by over 40,000 visitors, including students, parents, teachers and other professionals.

The entry was free for students, while non-students were charged Rs50 at the entrance. All proceeds will go to the Dawn Earthquake Relief Foundation, informed the coordinator.

As many as 110 stalls, representing about 150 local and foreign educational institutions, were set up in three halls where faculty members, admission officers and career counsellors were available for guidance of students.

Most of the colleges and universities based in UK, Australia, France, Germany, US, Malaysia, Egypt, had also brought with them special scholarship packages for Pakistani students, which were responded well, and it is likely that a number of excellent students would get a feedback in two or three months time, said the expo coordinator.

A maximum of 60 stalls were occupied by educational institutions from UK, followed by Australia (20).

A few seminars on visa processing and travelling documentations were also conducted on the sideline of exhibition.

A number of students were seen holding sets of academic documents while negotiating under “on-the-spot offer and admissions” at a couple of centres. The visitors showed interest mostly for study programmes in US, UK and Australia.

A foreign varsity officer said that the presentation in exhibition also helped assess our courses of studies and the related modules in order to match those as per needs of students aspiring admissions in our country, added the officer.