Pakistan Finally Pays Tuition for Its Students Abroad

To the relief of thousands of Pakistani students enrolled on government scholarships at universities abroad, the Pakistan government has released 2.819 billion Pakistan rupees, or about $35.4-million, to pay their tuition, The Nation reported. The government had not paid the scholarships for the last academic term.

Many Pakistanis studying abroad under the country’s ambitious foreign-scholarship program found themselves in tuition trouble last November, as Pakistan’s cash-strapped Higher Education Commission did not have the money to pay the foreign universities.

A senior official at the commission said then that more than 2,500 students were enrolled at universities in Australia, Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Romania, and the United States, among others. Other reports stated that as many as 6,500 students were abroad under the program.

The official said Pakistan’s financial crisis was to blame for the late payments. Another senior official told The Nation earlier that the foreign-scholarship program would continue as long as money was available for it, while another newspaper reported that the commission had already shelved all of its scholarship programs