ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Embassy in Kabul formally launched the second phase of a scholarship programme which will place 800 Afghan students in top Pakistani higher education institutions this year, the embassy said in a statement on Saturday.
Over 16,000 students are appearing in a written test to be conducted in Kabul between 25-28 January and at Pakistan consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat between 27- 28 January.
“Successful candidates are provided an opportunity to study in Pakistan’s most prestigious public universities and institutions,” read the statement.
The Allama Iqbal scholarship programme named after the famed Pakistani poet and scholar, was first launched in 2009 and successfully provided full funding to 3,000 Afghan students who have since returned to Afghanistan. The new scholarships will be awarded over a period of five years in the fields of medicine, engineering, agriculture, natural sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities.
According to an embassy tweet, “The Allama Iqbal scholarship programme for Afghan students is multi-disciplinary and is offered in various categories... undergraduates, graduates, Masters, M.phil and Ph.D.”
The scholarship programme was developed by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry for Inter-Provincial Coordination, in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Apart from benefitting Afghanistan and Afghan institutions, the programme is based around the idea that students returning home will eventually help institution-to-institution relations between the two countries.
