KARACHI, Oct 29: Sindh Education and Literacy Minister Hameeda Khuhro has called for promotion of merit and talent at all levels along with development of primary and secondary education system in the province for providing new generation a strong base for higher education.

She was presiding over a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Sindh Endowment Fund at her office on Friday. Sindh Secretary Education Nadir Ali Markhiani, Special Secretary Education Syed Sohail Akbar Shah, Deputy Secretary Finance Asif Haider Shah, ISRA University vice-chancellor Dr Asadullah Kazi, and Institute of Business Administration Director Dr Danishmand were also present at the meeting.

The minister was briefed that the trust was established to provide scholarships to the needy and deserving students for completion of their studies in the fields of business administration/ management and information technology.

She was further informed that the trust was made functional with an initial amount of Rs400 million, which were used for the purchase of Pakistan Investment Bonds and the interest obtained was being utilized for providing scholarships.

In the first year, some 41 deserving students who got admissions at six reputed educational institutions were given scholarships at the ratio of 60:40 per cents for rural and urban areas respectively.

A three-member sub-committee was assigned the task of selecting candidates for scholarships and only those candidates were allowed to contest whose parents' income was not more than Rs0.3 million annually.

The meeting decided to provide scholarships to 100 students in current academic session at the same ratio for which around 677 candidates had applied so far. The meeting also decided that students to be enrolled at Sindh University and IBA Sukkur in addition to FAST, SZABIST, CBM, IBA Karachi, ISRA and Indus Valley will also be given scholarships.

A sub-committee comprising Dr Danishmand, Dr Zubair Shaikh and Dr Anwar Shah was constituted at the meeting to conduct interviews of the candidates. It was further decided that the fee of application forms would be reduced from Rs50 to Rs20 and give remuneration to sub- committee members at the rate of Rs450 per day.

The meeting reviewed the progress reports of students who were given scholarships and decided to issue warnings of withdrawal of stipend to candidates showing poor performance during studies. It was further decided that posters would be placed at notice boards of educational institutions in Sindh, informing students to apply for the scholarship. -PPI