ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has earmarked an amount of Rs194.513 million for PhD scholarships in social sciences, arts and humanities.

University teachers of these disciplines will be offered the scholarships for higher studies on open merit basis, said an official statement.

This was disclosed in the 4th meeting of the committee on development of social sciences and humanities sector in the country, here the other day.

Out of the amount, Rs44.730 million will be spent during the current fiscal year. The meeting was presided over by Prof Atta- ur-Rahman, HEC chairman and minister incharge for science and technology.

Dr Ata said the HEC was planning to develop a comprehensive programme for the social sector, which would comprise award of 25 foreign scholarships for PhD studies and ten post-doctoral fellowships per year.

In addition, indigenous PhD and sandwich programmes for higher studies will be started. In this regard, the HEC will assist social scientists in arranging seminars, conferences and summer schools.

Social scientists will be asked to conduct at lest one annual academic conference by the financial assistance of the HEC, he added.

He said through a programme, 10,000 reputed research journals of all disciplines, including social sciences and humanities, would be made available on the HEC website within two months.

All the public and private sector universities and institutions of higher learning would be facilitated through this programme without any cost.