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Most Pak students try to settle in Switzerland
LAHORE, Feb 6(The News): The president of the University of Business and Finance, Switzerland,
Andre Schaffner, has said the genuineness of students aspiring to go overseas
for higher studies is becoming a critical issue in their selection.
Talking to us during a visit to the provincial metropolis here
onMonday, he said that the Swiss embassy had given special instructions to the
universities in this regard and he was undertaking this visit to personally
interview the possible candidates.
"In the first leg of the tour in
Islamabad, the Swiss embassy officials have asked me to approach the Pakistani
market carefully," he informed adding the assessment of possible students had to
be done to minimise visa problems.
He said that he came to Pakistan
several times during the last few years to recruit the students for
undergraduate and postgraduate studies. "We had started from Islamabad and have
gradually added Karachi and Lahore as well as some second-level cities like
Sialkot, Faisalabad, Peshawar and Gujranwala recently," he revealed.
He
said that his university had 25 Pakistani students that also included residents
of Quetta and Kashmir adding that only 10 per cent of the students interviewed
in Pakistan during his visits managed to go for studies eventually.
Giving the reasons for this low output, he said that their intention to
return to their home country always remained questionable. "Most of them try to
settle in Switzerland or move towards greener pastures in other countries like
UK etc," he pointed out.
When asked to quantify the number of students
returning to Pakistan after studies, he said it was not very encouraging. "Even
majority of the students turning up for interviews are more interested in
part-time and summer job opportunities," he grumbled.
Andre said the
varsity offered scholarships to genuine students besides paid internships. He
termed his experience with Pakistani students at the university 'mixed.' "I fail
to understand why they lose focus after reaching Switzerland and start running
after jobs besides indulging in social ills like drinking etc," he regretted.
Normally, the serious Pakistani students were very polite, hard working
and law-abiding, the President acknowledged adding that the racial problems for
students were not as much in Switzerland as in some other countries of Europe.
On a question about post-9/11 scenario, he admitted that there were
cases of hidden racism at isolated places, but the Africans suffered more on
this count than the Pakistanis or Muslims in general.
The bearded
Muslims and Sikhs were at the receiving end of these occurrences owing to their
distinguished identities, he opined adding that students from several Muslim
countries were studying freely in Swiss institutions.
"We offer mixed
residency to the students from various nationalities to enable them to get along
well with each other," he asserted and said that good grades and continuously
improved performance during studies in Switzerland were the only criteria for
getting scholarships and other incentives.
Andre said that he had also
met the hierarchy of Punjab University's Hailey College of Business and Finance
to explore the possibilities of joint collaboration between both institutions
offering similar educational opportunities to students. However, this was still
at very initial level, he added.
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| Education News | | Updated: 24 May, 2012 |
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