The United States will be providing $45 million to the government of Pakistan’s Government of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced yesterday.
The funds will be primarily used in four different ways:
* Expanding relationships between Pakistani universities and U.S. institutions through increasing additional academic exchanges
* Increasing university and technical education for students who have been displaced by violence and to those living in vulnerable areas such as southern Punjab and the North West Frontier Province, which serves students from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
* Enabling the Higher Education Commission to exempt displaced students from fees, expand opportunities for students to become health professionals, and expand engineering and women’s education.
* Supporting infrastructure upgrades and improved teacher training at both vocational and university institutions.
This could certainly help tamp down radicalism among young people in Pakistan a bit. A good use of soft power.
