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KARACHI, Jan 5: Sindh Chief Secretary Fazalur Rehman has directed the education secretary to expand the scope of the Endowment Fund (EF) to cover all deserving students who needed financial assistance for higher professional education above the intermediate level.
Merit, besides need, should be the criterion of the selection, he said while presiding over a high-level meeting in his office on Monday.
The chief secretary suggested that the scheme should be expanded to prominent universities and public sector medical colleges of Sindh.
The programme should be publicised properly through the print and electronic media, he added.
The meeting sought suggestions on the criteria for extending assistance to those students who pass their matric exams with distinction but fail to get admission to Class-XI and also those who cannot continue their higher education.
The meeting decided to institutionalise the endowment fund programme and involve principals and headmasters of higher secondary schools through DCOs and EDOs (education) in order to ensure effective utilisation of the funds.
ACS (development) Nazar Hussain Mahar, education secretary Rizwan Memon, services & general administration secretary Syed Hashim Raza Zaidi, finance secretary Fazlullah Pechuho and special finance secretary Naheed Shah were among the officials who attended the meeting.
Rural development
The chief secretary also presided over a meeting to review rural development. The meeting was informed that a summary had been sent to the department concerned for the integration of the village development programme with the rural development department.
The meeting discussed matters relating to the Bureau of Supply and Prices, and decided that the posting orders of 275 employees and director-general, absorbed in other departments at the time of the dissolution of the bureau, would be issued within a couple of days.
Secretaries of finance, agriculture, irrigation and other departments concerned attended the meeting.—PPI
