Islamabad, Jan. 24 (Gwadar Pro) – Pakistan has directed its students enrolled in the Chinese universities “to continue to attend online classes” of their respective programmes and keep close contact with their respective Chinese institutions amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pakistanis top education body, the Higher Education Commission (HEC), on Saturday afternoon issued an advisory for Pakistani students enrolled in China’s universities “on behalf of the Chinese Embassy, Islamabad.”
“Since the students are already enrolled in Chinese universities and taking online classes, they are advised to continue to attend online classes of their respective programmes and keep close contact with their respective Chinese institutions,” the advisory, tweeted by HEC.
HEC advisory said the second wave of COVID-19 and further mutation of coronavirus had increased the spread of the pandemic during the last two months. “The immigration policies for international students to China have not been determined yet,” said HEC advisory.
Pakistan ranks third in the number of international students currently studying in China with 28,023 students. South Korea ranked first with 50,600 students, followed by Thailand with 28,608, India with 23,198, and the United States with 20,996.
A total of 492,185 international students from 196 countries studied in China last year, up 0.62 per cent from the previous year. The number of students pursuing academic education increased by 6.86 per cent year-on-year to 258,122, accounting for 52.44 per cent of the total.
Students studying for masters’ and doctoral degrees increased by 12.28 per cent to 85,062. Most international students in China have been self-funded, accounting for 87.19 per cent of the total.
The official data shows that China has become the top education destination for Pakistani students as out of all of them enrolled in Chinese universities, around 7,034 are studying on scholarships.
The number of Pakistani students has risen in China mainly because of a series of preferential policies offered by the Chinese government after the launch of CPEC, a pilot project of BRI.
Currently, 6,156 Pakistani students are studying in PhD, 3,600 in Masters, 11,100 in Bachelors and 3,000 in Short Term Exchange Programs across China. Pakistani students are also studying Chinese language, engineering, medical, computer science and various other fields.
Various scholarships are provided by the Chinese government to facilitate international students. Most notably, students from the BRI participating countries and regions have been supported to obtain scholarships under the Chinese Government Scholarship – Silk Road Program.
Source: China Economic Net