Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) celebrated the launch of new online mechanism for disbursement of USAID-funded merit and needs-based scholarship in 30 partner universities across Pakistan.

This online system is part of USAID’s multi-year $36 million merit and needs-based scholarship programme and is the first programme at the HEC to adopt an online disbursement mechanism. Under this programme, students will be issued ATM cards so as to facilitate them in withdrawal of funds for both tuition payments and living expenses. In this connection, NBP accounts have been opened for 1,470 awardees at 30 partner universities throughout Pakistan. First payments using the new system will be made during the next week.

Addressing the MoU signing ceremony, Dr Arshad Ali, executive director at the HEC, said, “The conventional methods of disbursement of stipends involve lengthy procedures at the partner universities, which frequently delay stipend release to the scholarship recipients. Now, through the new online stipend disbursement mechanism, students will receive payments directly into their bank accounts, ensuring maximum efficiency.”

In his remarks, Saeed Ahmad, president of the NBP, lauded the efforts of the HEC for adopting the online banking system, replacing conventional procedures to disburse funds in a speedy manner. He said that scholarship funds mean a lot to the students and “we are pleased that NBP through its Asaan Account has given the facility to the scholarship awardees of this programme to open their accounts anywhere in Pakistan.” No doubt it will be a huge relief for the students, he added.

Erica Rounsefell, acting director at the Office of Education, USAID Pakistan, lauded HEC for partnering with the agency throughout the programme. “This is a remarkable achievement that brings not only efficiency but also greater security and transparency to the scholarship payment process. We look forward to continue to work with HEC to assist student access to higher education,” she added.

Indexing agencies:

The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has won three indexing agencies from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in an open competition for providing free online access to research articles, facilitating researchers and academicians.

The agencies will provide database in three disciplines: education, Pakistani languages and Islamic studies.

On the occasion, Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Shahid Siddiqui said that it is a great honour for the AIOU to do indexing and abstracting work for providing access of indigenous research to local and international researchers. The university will provide the services of shortening or summarizing of documents and assigning of descriptors for referencing documents.

According to Dean Education Dr Nasir Mahmood, indexation of a journal will promote citation of local research and contribute to enhancing relevance and quality of research in future. The promotion of research culture in AIOU during the last about four years has empowered faculty and it has won more than 12 research projects in various programs of the HEC.

About the quality of the research work being carried out by the university, he said out of 17 research journals, one related to education has recently achieved X category status while another two got Y category.

Recently, the university has focused on developing itself as a research-based educational institution, constructing knowledge in all disciplines and disseminating the same to the end users. Moreover, the research activities were linked with the society’s socio-economic issues.

The university also provided a platform to the young researchers to showcase their research work and learn from the experience of their seniors and in this connection an annual activity was generated. A number of conferences at national and international level were arranged to promote the research work.

Published in Daily Times, June 14^th 2018.