Capacity building: ‘Holland can help Pakistani students, teachers’

Ambassador Gajus Scheltema visits UAF.

FAISALABAD:

“Holland can help Pakistani universities through fellowship programmes for faculty and students to build capacity in horticulture, floriculture, dairy and food processing,” Gajus Scheltema, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands, said on Thursday.

He was addressing a meeting with the deans and directors of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, at the New Syndicate Hall.

Scheltema said that universities in Holland were independent and the government did not interfere in any of the universities’ affairs.

He said horticulture was a core business in Netherlands which was a leading flower producer and exporter.

He stressed the need for people’s involvement in animal production and sending young professionals on internship with private dairy farms to make them competitive with the international standards and emerging business trends.

Earlier, UAF VC Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that university was one of the some comprehensive universities in Pakistan. He said 23 per cent of the UAF students were getting free education.

The VC informed the ambassador that the UAF had collaborations with Australian agencies, AusAID and ACIAR. He said the University of Western Australia had announced flood $100,000 scholarships to Pakistani students.

He said the university was also working on a Turkish Rural Development Programme of goat distribution among women.

He said 270 of the faculty members had so far visited abroad for professional endeavors and that 198 foreign visitors had participated in various workshops, seminars and conferences at the UAF.

He said UAF had recently received internship offers from Indonesian, Malaysian, Australian, and Thai institutions.

Dr Fiaz Ahmad Ranjha, the National Talent Pool director general, said the government valued the role of elite professionals in national development and was pursuing a policy to encourage their contribution.

He said, 0.2 million highly qualified professionals were registered with the Pool. He said the government had earmarked Rs346 million for setting up a data bank of highly qualified Pakistanis abroad and in Pakistan.

Later, the delegation, along with the VC, visited the university’s rose extraction plant, the food processing unit and the post harvest laboratory.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2012.