ISLAMABAD, The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has stopped another batch of 200 students from traveling abroad for higher studies.

“HEC has officially informed us to wait until economic situation improves,” a dejected student told Dawn, requesting anonymity.

“You can well imagine the shock I got on receiving the HEC letter. To be told to put away your study plans after you have spent so much time and labour in making the arrangements, really breaks your heart,” he said.

Travel plans of the 200 students were ready in September to join their universities in France, Italy, Germany, Thailand, Austria and England when the HEC told them to put on hold their study plans. Most of the students had enrolled for MS leading to PhD programmes.

Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh dropped the hammer in a recent meeting when he informed the HEC plainly that the government had no funds for scholarships.

“We had no option but to stop them (the 200 students) from flying to their universities,” said an official of HEC. Students have been asked to wait for one year, but everything depended upon the government funding for HEC, according to him.

The government’s cut in the Higher Education Commission’s development grants has severely disrupted its ongoing and future scholarship schemes.

In the last two years, more than 2,700 students could not pursue their higher studies under different scholarship programmes of the commission because of shortage of funds. Some 1,000 of them were destined for international universities and the remaining had been selected for studies in local universities. According to one official, the HEC has stopped processing applications for the 2,000 approved scholarship slots in foreign universities, and 1,700 such opportunities in government-run universities within the country.

Moreover, the HEC had to abandon its proposals under which 4,000 scholarship opportunities were to be offered to best Pakistani students for studies in top world universities. With development grants being continuously squeezed, HEC has put its future scholarship schemes on hold for the time being, he added.

Since the setting up of HEC in 2002, over Rs20 billion had been spent on its human resource development programme, which covers all its scholarship schemes. HEC has awarded 13,436 scholarships, of which 5,765 scholars went to foreign universities. Of them, 2,449 have returned and the rest continue their educational goals.

“We really are finding it difficult to regularly provide stipend to our foreign scholars. Major chunk of HEC’s development grant is going to these scholars,” the official said. The official said last year when the government imposed heavy cuts on HEC’s development grant, foreign scholars faced difficulties even in meeting daily expenditures. Considering the seriousness of the situation, HEC diverted all its funds to fulfill its commitments with international universities. Some of the international universities threatened to send back the students if financial commitments were not kept. That would have been a national embarrassment, he said.

Talking to Dawn, Tahir, an aspirant for MSc leading to PhD scholarship programme, said despite being a top scorer in the mandatory written exam his plan for higher studies had hit snags. “I was all set to fulfill my dream of PhD in a UK university, but my name has been dropped from the list.”

In view of the fund crisis, the HEC looked for foreign universities where they could put scholars without paying any tuition fee but failed. Students, however, were given different reasons for dropping them, he claimed.