Staff Reporter
Federal Minister for Education and Vocational Training Shafqat Mahmood has said that for the first time in the history of the country, the present government has introduced scholarship schemes for the fields which have been ignored in the past. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the scholarship for 1,000 students of the four-year degree program for the first time in the field of Nursing organized by the National Endowment Scholarship for Talent (Nest) in Islamabad, Shafqat Mahmood said eight months ago, when this program came to the Ministry of Education, we thought of how to take this program forward. He said that then the ministry decided that the Nest scholarship would be used for the development of sectors which have been ignored in the past or are not getting scholarships from the Higher Education Commission.
In this regard, 400 scholarships for the Arts and Culture Higher Education have been launched a month ago under Nest. He said that one thousand scholarships are being given today in the field of Nursing for the development and promotion of the field of nursing and higher human resources. He said that 1.24 billion rupees will be spent on the Nursing Scholarship program in four years, while the total of four and a half thousand nurses will be provided with these scholarships for free education.
Federal Minister Shafqat Mahmood said that the current government is giving 50,000 scholarships annually to undergraduates. Nursing is a sector which lacks scholarship, and many children want to come to this area but have expensive education and lack of resources. Because of this they cannot get this education. Shafqat Mahmood said that the youth population in Pakistan is 65% of the total population. The federal minister said that a youth training program has been started and that in the next 20 months, 100,000 people will be taught skills. According to the latest trends in the world, Vocational Training Scheme has been developed with a huge amount of ten billion rupees to make young people skilled. He said that the Turkish government is setting up a hospitality center in Pakistan where young people will be trained in the tourism sector.
Hajra Sohail, program manager for the National Endowment Scholarship for Talent, said at the event that 886 scholarships under the Nursing Scholarship will be awarded annually for the four-year Bachelors program, 119 scholarships for masters in nursing, and 13 scholarships for Ph.D. Ten percent of the additional scholarships will be awarded every year. Pakistan Nursing Council Registrar Mrs. Fauzia Mushtaq thanked the federal government and NEST on the occasion that a scholarship program has been launched for the deserving and capable students and students in this area too. About 5,000 nurses come to the field every year after completing their education, she said. At present there are an estimated 80,000 nursing staff in Pakistan, while the number of nursing staff in Pakistan should be 8 million to meet the global standard.
Under the scholarship program, 52 top hospitals and nursing colleges across the country have been selected where the students from the backward areas, the deserving and the poor, will be selected for the scholarship.
