ISLAMABAD, Aug 24: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has allocated Rs600 million for the faculty development of relatively weaker universities in the public sector.

According to a press release, this was stated by the HEC chairman, Prof (Dr) Attaur Rehman, while talking to a group of faculty members of different universities.

The HEC chairman said under the programme, the faculty members of weaker public-sector universities would be offered foreign scholarships for MS/MPhil studies leading to PhD in the fields of engineering, natural and basic sciences, humanities and social sciences.

He said for this purpose, an amount of about Rs600 million had been approved by the federal government in a recently held meeting of the Central Development Working Party. Giving details of the scheme, Prof Ata said the scheme envisaged six-years MS/MPhil leading to PhD level training and six months language course for 98 teachers in advanced natural sciences, basic sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Similarly, two fellowships have been reserved for training of administrative staff at reputed universities of France, Germany, China and Austria. These countries have been selected as there is no tuition fee and the HEC's previous collaboration proved it very economical, he added.

Dr Ata also said that the major objective of the scheme was not only to create a critical mass of highly qualified natural and basic sciences manpower, but also capacity building of weaker universities through addition of 100 PhDs on priority basis.

The scheme would also facilitate assimilation, absorption and transfer of important and promising technologies to get high- tech products and achieve rapid economic progress, he added.