ISLAMABAD, Jan 9: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) in collaboration with the French government will launch a programme to strengthen social sciences and humanities disciplines in public sector universities.

According to an official statement issued here on Friday, in this regard a high-level meeting was held in Islamabad. Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) vice-chancellor Dr Najma Najam, who is also the chairperson of the HEC's committee on development of social sciences and humanities, presided over the meeting.

French embassy's educational and cultural counsellor Dr Fredric Garare and senior officials of the HEC, including Prof (Dr) Sohail H Naqvi, Member (HRD), and Dr S. Mehmood Raza, Adviser Research, attended the meeting and explored the possibilities for development of social sciences and humanities disciplines in higher education institutions of the country.

Mr Garare briefed the participants of the meeting on the French proposal to facilitate five scholars from Pakistan. Similarly, the FJWU vice-chancellor informed the French diplomat about the parallel programme for French scholars, who would be visiting Pakistan under the Pak-French joint research venture.

During the meeting, both Dr Najam and Dr Garare emphasized on the need for setting up an initial liaison forum in Pakistan and France to run the Pak-French Scholarships/ Fellowships programme.

The liaison forum will also look after the implementation of the Pak-French fellowships programme as well as selection of the candidates. It was also decided that research scholars from both the countries would be free to choose their topics of research but only in the fields of social sciences and humanities.