ON May 3, 2015, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) announced overseas scholarships for MS leading to PhD under phase-II of Aghaaz-i-Haqooq-i-Balochistan scholarship programme.

The aptitude tests were conducted in August the same year. Now a year has passed but there has been no progress. Whenever the HEC is contacted, its bureaucracy gives lame excuses such as they have not received documents from the candidates to make final lists or they are facing problems contacting them, or the scholarship committee will decide soon.

Besides, it is also a point of worry that very few candidates won the scholarship under phase-I mostly owing to HEC’s complicated process. Those who succeeded mostly ended going to developing countries.

Recently, the HEC also conducted aptitude tests for several other scholarship programmes. It is feared that future actions regarding Aghaaz-i-Haqooq-i-Balochistan overseas-II will be taken at the same pace. If this project cannot deliver what was portrayed and hoped, then its name should be changed.

A concerned candidate
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2016