As fund swells to Rs2b, over 1,500 Sindh students selected for full scholarships

Endowment Fund for Education started out with just Rs200 million.

KARACHI:

In what is possibly the largest effort of its kind for higher education, more than 1,500 students in Sindh will win full scholarships to continue their education at 27 prestigious institutions in Pakistan.

The students applied in January and the list will be made public next month. The students applied through their own institutions after they were accepted.

About Rs250 million has been distributed over eight years to about 3,000 students. The scholarship covers the cost of admission and tuition fees for the student’s degree programme in business management, engineering, medicine or information technology.

This year is a giant leap for the Sindh government’s Endowment Fund for Education. It started in 2002 with a seed money of Rs200 million. Annual government contributions and savvy investment by the fund’s managers has brought it to Rs2 billion today.

A principal amount of Rs1.5 billion is intact despite a three-year lapse in annual contributions during this government’s tenure, explained the additional secretary for endowment, Dr Azeemur Rehman Khan Meo. The department has earned profits up to half a billion rupees from the principal investment.

As the finance department has been directed to contribute Rs500 million annually, the education department hopes to increase the number of scholarships.

The endowment fund was created to encourage talented students held back by their humble backgrounds, said Sindh Education Secretary Mukhtar Ahmed Soomro while talking to The Express Tribune.

The candidates eligible for the scholarships could be high school graduates who set out to achieve higher education at any of the institutions on the list. Students already awarded scholarships can also apply for renewal after a year. An Endowment Fund Board, whose members include prominent independent educationists such as Institute of Business Administration (IBA) director Dr Ishrat Husain and Iqra University VC Dr UAG Isani, will finalise the list of successful students. Initially, the fund was restricted to six institutions - the Aga Khan University, Szabist, IBA’s Karachi and Sukkur campuses, University of Sindh and the Institute of Business Management. The scholarships are now given to students at all public higher education institutions, according to Meo.

Five prestigious institutions - the Lahore University of Management Sciences and University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore; Quaid-e-Azam University and the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad; and Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology - have also been included on the fund’s list.

A 60 to 40 ratio will be maintained for rural and urban candidates. Around 70 per cent of the fund will be allocated for undergraduates and 30 per cent for postgraduates. The limit of the candidates’ combined household income has been set below half a million rupees.

While this year’s scholarships will be announced next month, endowment scholarships for the next fiscal year may become available in November, immediately after the admission lists are released by the universities.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11^th, 2012.