Sada-e-Watan Sydney ™
sadaewatan@gmail.com

Australian High Commission Islamabad organised pre-departure briefing for Pakistanis

HC Zorica McCarthy

The Australian High Commission to Pakistan organised a pre-departure briefing at Islamabad for the Australian Development Scholarships 2007 Awardees to prepare them for living and studying in Australia.
High Commissioner for Australia Ms Zorica McCarthy, Chief Advisor Fabia Shah, Programme Officer Noreen Hasan, scholarship holders and their family members attended the pre departure briefing.
The Australian Government has awarded seventy-seven scholarships to Pakistani students for Masters and Doctorate level study in Australia for the academic year 2007.
While addressing the students Ms Zorica emphasised the advantages of pursuing education in Australia and the important ways that can build relationships with neighbouring countries based on mutual understanding, respect and people to people links fostered by education.
She said, “ the image of the Pakistan has been affected and it is considered the breeding ground for terrorism. You know that the vast majority of Pakistanis are moderate and that is the message that you have to spread.”
While giving tips to girls students in a tea break she said there was violence against women and crime in every society but in Pakistan it was more than every society. Australian society also had violence and crime so Australian universities would give you the briefing about moving at the University and other areas.
Fifty-two students will undertake masters-level study and twenty-five students will undertake a four-year doctorate programme in Australia in the areas of natural resource management, social sciences, health, education, law and legal studies, business administration and economics.
Students will get a chance of studying in different universities of Australia including University of Melbourne, Australian National University, Curtin University of Technology, University of Queens land, University of New South Wales, University of Perth, University of Sydney and University of Brisbane.
These scholarships have been provided under the Australia-Pakistan Scholarship Programme through which the Australian Government will provide 500 scholarships over five years for Pakistani Nationals.
A scholarship holder Ms Auj Iqbal, works in a National Accountability Bureau (NAB), going to study “Transnational Crime Prevention” said this higher study will provide us necessary skills and knowledge to drive change and influence the development outcomes in our relevant departments.
Talking about her subject Ms Auj said “We deal with crime and corruption cases but now we are facing cases that involves many countries like people get money through illegal means and deposit it in the foreign banks like Swiss case. So to counter transnational crime we need to study and adopt new developments and techniques that are emerging in this field.”
Dr. Abid who is going to undertake Doctorate programme in Public Health, said “in Pakistan research on drugs is not up to that level and most of the research is being done in epidemic related issues so I have opted for higher studies abroad.”