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No gender discrimination at Quaid-e-Azam University
ISLAMABAD, Jan 15(Daily Times): Dr Qasim Jan, the
vice-chancellor of the Quaid-e-Azam University, said at the start of a
conference on Islamic Identities, Gender and Higher Education in Pakistan that
there was no gender discrimination at the QAU.
"Forty three per cent of
the students at the campus are girls with the Department of Psychology having
the highest number of women," he said in his address as the three-day conference
sponsored by the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) got underway. The
biennial conference that has attracted foreign scholars will focus mainly on
humanities and social sciences, J Mark Kenoyer the president of AIPS
said.
Dr Jan told the inaugural session attended by academicians both
Pakistani and foreign, that out of 152 students at the Department of Psychology,
133 were women. He pointed out that the Department of Earth Sciences remained
the least attractive for female students and had only 17 women in a total
strength of 203.
The QAU is collaborating with the AIPS in organising the
event which, officials said, was the third major international conference after
those held at the Columbia University in 2003 and the University of Philadelphia
two years later.
Claiming that the QAU embodied all the topics of the
conference - identities, gender and higher education - Dr Jan said that 61 per
cent of the QAU faculty were PhDs. Officials said that the goal of this year's
conference was to facilitate scholarly research relating to Pakistan and to
encourage the exchange of ideas among scholars from both countries.
In
his opening speech, Kenoyer said that the primary objective of the AIPS was to
support research exchanges between Pakistan and US besides increasing the
visibility of Pakistan among the American academic arena.
He thanked the
Pakistani government and the Ministry of Education for supporting the AIPS,
which also has the support of the US State Department. The institute offers
research scholarships and travel grants to pre-doctoral and post-doctoral
American scholars to conduct field projects in Pakistan. Similarly, the AIPS
also offers lectureship and other research opportunities to Pakistani scholars
in the US.
Meanwhile, Peter W Bodde, US Embassy's deputy chief of
mission, said that there was nothing nobler than the pursuit of strengthening
bilateral relationship through academic and scholarly exchange.
"This is
an excellent example of how ties between Pakistan and the US continue to deepen
and widen and the current US-Pakistan relationship is not exclusively focused on
security and the War on Terror," he said.
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| Education News | | Updated: 09 Feb, 2012 |
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