Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif presided over a high level meeting, here today, which reviewed the programme of sending boy and girl students to China for attending courses in Chinese language. Addressing the meeting, the Chief Minister said the in the first phase, Punjab government will send three hundred boys and girl students to China at its own expenses for learning Chinese language. He said that in accordance with the policy of Punjab government, these students will be selected purely on merit and they will attend a two years’ course of translator. He said that like other programmes of Punjab government, ten percent extra quota has been allocated for boy and girl students of south Punjab in this programme. He said that students of Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Sindh, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir will also be included in this programme. Shehbaz Sharif directed that best universities of China should be selected for learning Chinese language and necessary steps should be taken at the earliest for implementation of this programme. He said that Punjab government will send three hundred students to China on scholarship while in the second phase, three hundred more students will be send for learning Chinese language. The Chief Minister said that the growing economic and trade relations between China and Pakistan demand that Pakistani students should learn Chinese language as it has become an international language. Secretary Higher Education gave a briefing to the meeting on the programme of sending students to China for learning Chinese language. Provincial Ministers Rana Mashhood Ahmad, Raja Ashfaq Sarwar, Chief Secretary Khizar Hayat Gondal, Secretaries of Information, Labour, Planning & Development besides senior officers of concerned departments attended the meeting.
