UK new immigration system for international students

UK introduces new student immigration system
Islamabad, April 01: The United Kingdom on Tuesday introduced new arrangements for student visas as part of Tier 4 of the Points Based System. The move will make the visa process simpler, more objective and more transparent for applicants and prevent abuse of the immigration system.

"From today (Tuesday), all education providers that recruit international students in the UK need to be registered with the UK Border Agency," the UK High Commission said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

More than 1,400 universities, independent schools and colleges are registered as licensed sponsors and they are responsible for ensuring that international students comply with the conditions of their visas while they are in the UK.

It said the students would ensure that they acquire unconditional offers of a study place from a licensed education provide before making visa applications. They also need to show that they had sufficient funds to cover course fees and living costs during their studies. The high commission said the students would be issued visas for study at a particular institution. The UK government was determined that the new visa arrangements would benefit talented legitimate students looking to benefit from the UK's world-leading educational institutions. "At the same time, it will be easier to prevent those students and education institutions that intend to abuse the immigration processes from doing so," it said. Daily Times

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Students compelled to study old books in new academic session
Islamabad: Students in this academic session would study the same old textbooks as the Ministry of Education has failed to introduce new curriculum of different subjects up to the higher secondary level, it was learnt reliably.

The curriculum of 26 subjects had been notified by the provinces and the Education Ministry but could not be translated into textbooks.

The responsibility to translate the curriculum into textbooks and further to publish the books falls with the provinces.

Whereas the political instability dampened the country's other areas, education sector is no exception. It is further learnt that after relinquishing the charge by the Lt Gen (R) Javed Ashraf, former education minister, no major development has been made into already done work. The portfolio of the ministry also remained vacant for quite sometime and frequent changes affected the process.

The former education minister, Ahsan Iqbal of PML-N had announced that the new curriculum would be implemented in the academic session of April 2009 but the curriculum of the subjects has not been prepared by the Ministry of Education as yet.

The provinces have also failed to translate that curriculum into text books.

In the 15th Inter-Provincial Education Ministers' meeting the Federal Education Minister Mir Hazar Khan Bajrani had requested the Provincial Educational Ministers and representative from AJK, FATA and Northern Areas to prepare the text books by the December 2009 so that the new curriculum could be implemented in a phased manner.

The much-talked about new curriculum that had to be implemented from academic year of August 2008 according to the claims by the Musharraf government could not be implemented as the curriculum of 34 subjects out of 60 subjects was yet to be prepared.

The former government had gained much credit on this matter making tall claims that the new curriculum had been notified according to the international standards.

It was announced that the new National Curriculum would be free of any biases, hate, sectarianism and repetitions. Medical Technology and Computer Science Groups would been introduced in the new Curriculum and the Curriculum had been made compatible with any advance country and the government had decided to update the National Curriculum after every five years to ensure that all new developments were incorporated. The Nation

Academics condemn excessive loadshedding
Peshawar: Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association has condemned the excessive power outages on the University of Peshawar (UoP) campus and asked the authorities to take measures to overcome the problem.

A meeting of the federation was held here with its central president Dr Arbab Khan Afridi in the chair. The presidents and general secretaries of the teaching staff associations of Gomal University, NWFP Agricultural University, NWFP University of Engineering and Technology and other public sector universities of the province also attended the meeting.

The participants resented the hours-long loadshedding in the province in general and university campus in particular. They said precious time of the students was going waste due to power outages.

The academicians said the university administration should arrange power generators on the campus if it was unable to take up the issue of loadshedding at the appropriate forum. The meeting also condemned the police action against the students who were protesting against unscheduled power disruption.

The meeting also criticised the university decision to stop fuel allowance to the teaching staff and demanded of the administration to immediately restore the facility. They said the Syndicate of the University of Peshawar had approved upgrading of the associate professors to BS-21 but the university administration, without any reason, deprived them of promotion. They demanded promotion to the teachers without further delay. The participants said the PhD allowance for teachers in the NWFP should be increased from Rs5,000 to Rs10,000.

The meeting took a strong exception to the deprivation of the children of teaching staff and other employees at Islamia College and University of Peshawar of free education facility and increase in their fees. They said if the issue of the admission and fee of the employees' children was not resolved, they would launch a protest campaign in all the public sector universities.

The meeting also castigated the federal government for 73 per cent cut in the grants of public sector universities and demanded a review of the decision and release of funds to all the universities.

Young people of Balochistan, Fata to get scholarships
Islamabad: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is organising its first merit scholarship certificate award ceremony under the Project 'Provision of Higher Education Opportunities for the Students of Balochistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata)' on April 1.

The initiative has been taken under President's Directive and the awards ceremony would be held on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. at HEC headquarters here. The scholars will also be paid first installment of the stipend etc. Around 120 scholars are expected to receive the award.

This is a fully-funded educational opportunity for students of Balochistan and Fata which covers the tuition fee, living allowance, book allowance and travel and settlement allowance. The scholarships have been awarded on merit; are not linked to any discipline; and distributed among Districts of Balochistan and Agencies in Fata on population basis. The scheme provides for award of 2000 scholarships i.e. 700 for masters programme and 1300 for graduate studies over period of seven years.

However, the distribution between Balochistan and Fata is in ratio of 60 to 40 per cent. The total number of scholarships will gradually increase each year whereas during the first year there are only 140 scholarships. The total cost of Scheme is Rs981.486 million. National Assembly Deputy Speaker Fazal Karim Kundi will be the chief guest while Syed Akhundzada Chitan, Member National Assembly from FATA and Syed Nasir Ali Shah, Member National Assembly from Quetta will also address the participants. The News

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