On Thursday Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform, Mr. Ahsan Iqbal held a joint meeting with senior officials of the US State Department and USAID at Pakistan Embassy, Washington DC.
The focus of the meeting centred on Pakistan’s ambitious energy infrastructure plans and strengthening educational, economic and trade-related bilateral relations between the two countries.
The meeting also discussed the the progress in implementation of the US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor which is aimed at collaboration of US and Pakistani universities to produce 10,000 Pakistani PhD scholars in various disciplines over the course of next 10 years.
Speaking during a meeting, Mr. Ahsan Iqbal said:
“Pakistan is fast emerging as a success story in Asia due to economic reforms introduced by the government. China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has put Pakistan in global investment map. The government is committed to developing quality human resource for the future of country to transform Pakistan’s economy into a Knowledge Economy.”
Furthermore the Minister added:
“Initiative to train 10,000 PhDs in next ten years at top US universities is a critical element of Vision 2025, which seeks to put Pakistan in top 25 economies of the world. Government has allocated funds for this project. The first phase of the project with cost of Rs 18.5 billion has been approved by ECNEC recently.”
In order to facilitate the early roll out of ‘US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor’ for development of Pakistan’s human resource, the US officials must expedite the required formalities particularly the internal coordination among the relevant US agencies, Mr. Ahsan Iqbal urged the US officials during the meeting.
About US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor
Under the US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor programme, 10,000 Pakistani scholars shall be provided opportunities for Doctoral studies at ranked US universities, enabling Pakistani HEI’s to have highly qualified PhD faculty. In the initial phase, HEC (Higher Education commission) is focusing on sending 1,500 PhD scholars to US universities from Fall-2017. HEC will award Travel costs, monthly living expense, settling in allowance and Medical insurance fees to those who are admitted to US Universities for maximum of 3 years.
The details for Talent Farming Conferences and Workshops for interested candidates have been shared by HEC here.
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