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Scholarships for girls a great idea!

* Unilever’s initiative praised at KC

Staff Report

LAHORE: Unilever Pakistan’s Fair and Lovely scholarship programme for graduate and post-graduate education for women has done the cause of female education in Pakistan a world of good, said Punjab Social Welfare Minister Ashifa Riaz Fatyana.

Speaking as the chief guest at an awareness programme regarding the scholarship programme at Kinnaird College (KC), she said that the government was committed to equipping women with the tools that would enable them to compete with men on an equal basis in contemporary society.

Ashifa said that Unilever had taken a great initiative for the promotion of literacy among women, adding that the government had also succeeded in bringing down drastically the dropout rate in girls’ schools with the provision of incentives like monthly stipends and cooking oil supplies in remote areas. KC Principal Mira Phalibus said that the scholarship programme would provide women an opportunity to accentuate their talents by being free to choose their own courses of study without any pressure.

Beaconhouse National University Dean Saleema Hashmi said that the programme was a ray of hope for women, especially those from remote areas of Pakistan, where the state of female education was appalling and girls were considered a liability. She also said that Unilever had demonstrated great social responsibility by taking an initiative in a realm of government competence.

Unilever Pakistan representative Muazzam Ali Khan said that the company had collected around 1,500,000 applications from students countrywide, including Azad Jammu and Kashmir. He said that the scholarship would fund one year’s worth of eduation for the recipients, who would be selected on the basis of their academic record and other criteria as defined by the selection committee. Renowned writer Amjad Islam Amjad, educationists Dr Surraiya Shafi Mir and Dr Baila Raza Jamil and Tauqeer Sheikh were also present on the occasion.

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