Islamabad, A meeting of the steering committee was held at Higher Education Commission (HEC) secretariat on Wednesday to design a model for development of a sustainable Student Loan Programme in Pakistan.

HEC chairperson Dr Javaid R Laghari presided over the meeting. HEC executive director Dr Sohail Naqvi, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi Vice Chancellor Dr Saeeda Asadullah, State Bank of Pakistan Additional Director banking policy and regulation Mahmood Shafqat, Deputy Secretary (Finance) Aamir Mahmood, National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Student Loan Scheme Wing vice president Shamim Iqbal, HEC Director General (Finance) Ghulam Mujtaba Kayani, and SAP/BAS Coordinator Khawaja Zahid Hussain attended the meeting.

The committee discussed the modalities for designing and development of the draft in compliance with the directive of the president of Pakistan to develop a sustainable Student Loan Programme. The main focus was to prepare the policy document acceptable to all stakeholders to provide the opportunity of higher education to all the needy students.

Dr Naqvi apprised the participants that under National Education Policy-2009, recognising the challenges for attainment of development goals, higher education from existing 4.6 per cent (1.1 million approximately) including colleges and distance education to 10 per cent by 2015 and 15 per cent by 2020, which meant tripling the enrolment of higher education sector in the next six years.

“Therefore, development of sustainable Students Loan Programme on a wider scale, which may be available to all the needy students in public as well as private sector institution of higher learning, is the need of the day,” he said.