ISLAMABAD, Aug 25: The Higher Education Commission would provide an amount of Rs190 million to University of Sindh, Jamshoro, for extension and addition to its various institutes and departments.

The scheme was approved by the federal government in a recently held meeting of the Central Development Working Party. According to an official statement issued here on Wednesday, the HEC chairman, Prof (Dr) Attaur Rehman, said the project was aimed at meeting the pressing need of strengthening the scholars, particularly in Sindh province.

The project will help meet the needs of university students, as their number has doubled and existing buildings are short of classrooms, laboratories, seminar halls, libraries, besides shortage of books, journals, equipment, general facilities etc.

Dr Ata said the university had planned to improve and extend the facilities for research to enhance the registration of students for MPhil and PhD programmes. He hoped that the project, when completed, would be beneficial for the people of Sindh and would provide access to the students of various university institutes to the latest facilities in terms of laboratories and books.

The scheme would also enable the faculty members to use sophisticated and precious equipment for their research projects, besides fully exploiting the potentials of the faculty, he added.

According to another statement issued by the HEC, Education Management Information System (HEMIS) workshop is scheduled to be held in January 2005 in collaboration with Unesco.

The decision to hold the HEMIS workshop was taken in a meeting between the HEC officials and Unesco director/representative Jorge Sedueria and programme specialist Hasan Abdi Keynan.

Dr Ata said the purpose of the HEMIS was to make an effort to run different universities in the country and establish linkages. Issue of quality assurance and accreditation were also discussed in the meeting. Moreover, the two sides also explored the possibility of teachers' training at higher level.