PESHAWAR, Jan 24: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Higher Education Department for the first time awarded PhD scholarships to college teachers of different subjects here on Tuesday.

An amount of Rs60 million was earmarked for the scholarships under the HED programme 'Human Resource Development for the Better Tomorrow'.

Ten teachers were awarded scholarships under the programme. Four out the 10 teachers would go abroad for PhD and four would do research inside the country while two of them were awarded split scholarships, to be completed both inside and outside the country.

The completion period for each PhD course is three years, however, it can be extended for another year.

The teachers, who will go abroad for PhD in their relevant subjects, include Mohammad Zaman and Muneer Khan (mathematics), Mohammad Tufail (computer science) and Gulnaz (chemistry).

Similarly, Saeed Ahmed Sain, Fazl Raziq, Musarat Shaheen and Attaur Rehman would complete their PhDs inside the country in the subjects of mathematics, statistics, botany and zoology respectively.

The two teachers, who are selected for the split scholarships, include Gulzar Hussain (English) and Iqbal Hussain (political science).

In this connection a ceremony was held at Achieves Library. University of Engineering and Technology Vice-chancellor Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gilani, Higher Education Department Secretary Farah Hamid Khan and Additional Secretary Dr Khalid Khan attended the ceremony.

Farah Khan said on the occasion that government introduced improvements in the higher education. She said that government launched four-year degree programme in many colleges to bring education system of the province at par with that of the develop world.

Dr Khalid said that presently 72 PhD holders were serving in different colleges of the province as teachers. In the coming few months, he said, eight more teachers would complete their PhD courses.

The number of PhD holders in pubic sector colleges would reach 110 in the next four years, he said.