As part of the assistance package to the nascent Afghan government, Pakistan has decided in principle to offer thousands of scholarships to Afghan students, besides opening a campus of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) in Kabul.In this regard, the Ministry of Education and Professional Training has finalised a Rs11.2 billion package to improve the education sector and skill development in the war-torn country.According to sources in the ministry, the amount will be spent for offering scholarships to 3,000 Afghan students in Pakistani universities, free training with stipend to 5,000 Afghan nationals for skills development in Islamabad, free training to 150 Afghan teachers, 100 nursing diploma scholarships and establishment of regional campus of AIOU in Kabul.
As the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, Pakistan is trying its best to help its neighbouring country. According to reports, Pakistan has decided to offer thousands of scholarships to Afghan students and Allama Iqbal Open University is also planning to open a campus in Kabul. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s assurance that Pakistan would provide all-out support to Afghanistan to avert a humanitarian crisis is a timely gesture. He has once again stressed the need to engage with the new government in Afghanistan and warned that a failure to do so would be disadvantageous for the world. The PM is right in expressing his hope that the world will not repeat the mistake of disengaging with Afghanistan. Keeping in view the plight of millions of vulnerable Afghans, there is an acute need for international support – but the world overall appears to be apathetic and unresponsive. Apart from Pakistan’s commitment to providing humanitarian assistance worth Rs5 billion, there is nothing much that the world community has offered.
There is a severe shortage of food commodities and emergency medical supplies, and at least half of the 40 million people in Pakistan are facing food insecurity. In this scenario there is a great responsibility on the shoulders of humanitarian organisations from across the world to come together and provide help to the Afghan people in distress. On Sunday, Pakistan is hosting an extraordinary session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s foreign ministers in Islamabad. This will be the second such moot in 40 years, as the first one took place after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The plight of vulnerable Afghan people is unspeakable; they have already suffered over four decades for miseries at the hands of both national and international actors. These are once again testing times for the people of Afghanistan and the world must find a way to help them by setting aside ideological and political differences with the Taliban.
For this sorry state of affairs, the Taliban themselves are also responsible to a great extent. Though they reiterated their commitment ‘in principle’ to education and jobs for girls and women, any concrete measures in that direction are not visible to the world community. During the meeting, the two sides agreed to increase collaboration between higher education institutions of the two countries.The visiting Afghan minister thanked the Pakistan government for its role in the reconstruction and education development of Afghanistan. He termed meetings with the Pakistani leadership very fruitful.