ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) plans to award 700 scholarships to students of Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Daily Times has learnt. According to details, under Phase-II of the project Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Scholarships for Balochistan and FATA Students, the commission plans to award 700 scholarships to post-graduate and under-graduate students enrolled in the public sector institutions. Under the project, HEC has allocated total of 3,900 post-graduate and under-graduate scholarships. Out of them, 700 scholarships were awarded in previous year. For this purpose, the commission has allocated Rs 274 million. The said scholarships comprised both indigenous and foreign scholarships. According to HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, there is a huge gap between the demand and the actual number of PhD scholars in the country. “To fill the gap, HEC is using all means. This is why we allocated a significant number of scholarships in the country, especially in FATA and Balochistan,” he said. Besides FATA and Balochistan, the HEC has also included some other scholarships in the plan. It launched a Pak-USAID merit and need-based scholarship programme at a cost of Rs 2,954.8 million. Similarly, the HEC also initiated Phase II of oversees scholarships for MS/MPhil leading to PhD for which it granted Rs 330 million. According to a senior official of the commission, as the country is facing an acute shortage of PhD scholars, the HEC is making its utmost efforts to overcome this deficiency. For this purpose, he said 5,000 PhD fellowships will be provided in the current year and Rs 175 million has been allocated for the purpose. He further said that under Pak-US Knowledge Corridor project, Rs 350 million would be spent on granting doctorate degrees to dozens of students. Currently, the HEC faces a shortage of more than 38,000 PhD scholars, who are needed in public and private universities of the country. The commission set the target in its ‘Vision 2025’. According to the commission, among the 34,444 fulltime faculty members, there are only 9,253 such teachers who hold PhD degrees. Some students who availed foreign scholarships by HEC did not return to the country despite signing agreements with the commission. Under the agreement, such students were bound to return back and serve at least five years in any university of the country. According to an audit report issued by Auditor General of Pakistan in 2016, the HEC lost Rs 55.11 million due to non-return of PhD scholars. On several occasions, the HEC senior management used to say that they were making efforts to recover the amounts from such scholars. However, according the sources in the HEC, the commission has no adequate mechanism to compel such scholars to return back or the amounts. Requesting anonymity, an HEC official said that most of the PhD scholars avoided returning to the country because they faced an uncertain future here. “Why will someone want to return to a country where PhD scholars are on the roads protesting for jobs,” he said. On the other hand, HEC has claimed that 3,807 scholars had returned to Pakistan after completing their studies abroad. Published in Daily Times, August 16th 2017.