The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) offered scholarships to 26 students enrolled in undergraduate degree programs at the International Islamic University (IIU) in Islamabad as part of the $165 million Pakistan Reading Project. The scholarships will take into account their tuition and supplies and also provide a stipend to the students. Beside this, the U.S. Government will also be awarding more than 4,500 scholarships to ambitious teachers.
With regard to this, the USAID Mission Director Gregory Gottlieb spoke, “No matter how many schools or libraries we build or facilities we provide, none of it will matter until we invest in improving the quality of teachers. Keeping this in mind, I am pleased to note that the USAID funded Pakistan Reading Project is working to do just that. The Project is another significant initiative of the U.S. Government in collaboration with the Government of Pakistan to improve the standard of basic education.”
This would be ranked as the very first and foremost fortunate group of IIU students to get awarded scholarships from the Pakistan Reading Project – a $165 million USAID program that aims to develop the reading skills of at least 2.5 million children to make certain that they are able to read at or above grade level by 2019. They work in collaboration with 28 Pakistani universities and 116 elementary teacher training colleges like IIU throughout Pakistan to uplift the standard of teaching skills and curriculum.
The U.S. partnership with the Government of Pakistan functions towards the rehabilitation and establishment of over 1,350 schools in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu & Kashmir and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The United States is also setting up centers for advanced education studies at four Pakistani universities and increasing the level English skills for more than 5,000 low-income students. The United States has given away more than 4,800 scholarships to university students to seek higher education through the Pakistan-USAID Merit and Needs Based Scholarship Program.
