Students exchange programme is the linchpin in China-Pakistan education cooperation, and this cooperation is being expanded to the students of all provinces of Pakistan with a special focus on Balochistan.
These views were expressed by Diana Bao, the spouse of Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, during her address to a 21-member delegation of girl students from Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University, Balochistan.
The delegation, especially sent by Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Rukhsana Jamil, was headed by Sadaf Khan, deputy director sports of the university. The girl students from all ethnic groups of Balochistan province were a part of the delegation.
“You are the brave daughters of Balochistan and I feel privileged to host you here in the Chinese embassy. We are reaching out to the people of Balochistan and we will help in efforts being made by Pakistan government for economic uplift and empowerment of the people at large,” said Diana Bao.
Bao said it is the vision of Chinese President Xi Jinping to pull out 70 million people from the clutches of poverty in China.
“With the launching of the CPEC, we hope the peoples of entire South Asia region would benefit from it. The welfare of the people is the purpose of CPEC. China is offering scholarships to the talented Pakistani students every year,” she added.
She said that serving the women of Pakistan was her passion and she was making all out efforts to directly reach out to the urban and rural womenfolk to help better understand their problems.
Diana Bao said that Chinese ambassador Sun Weidong and his dedicated team was working day and night to make CPEC a success, and Pakistan’s far-flung and underdeveloped areas would also benefit from the CPEC.
She said Balochistan had a good resemblance with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, and the universities of both the provinces needed to collaborate with each other in order to benefit from each other’s experiences.
She said it was heartening to note that Pakistan was fast departing from its past practice of looking towards educational institutions in European and American educational institutes and now thousands of Pakistani students were learning in China.
“Moreover, many Chinese students are also learning in Pakistani universities which help strengthen our education cooperation which has the capacity to play a role in forging unity among the nations in Asia,” she said.
Diana Bao said the historical background of the Sino-Pakistan relationship helps bring the peoples of both the countries together and the scholarships under the education corridor would further help cement this decades-old bond.
“We, the people of Asia, share many things in common in our rich history and tremendous future, and initiatives like this will help us a long way to fashion inseparable Asian unity,” she added.
Speaking on the occasion, Sadaf Khan said that the people of Balochistan were looking at the CPEC as a key to help mitigate the menace of illiteracy and unemployment, and Chinese scholarships would greatly help in empowering the women folk of Balochistan.
She said the women of Balochistan were talented enough to make their destiny and there was a need that the fruits of CPEC may reach to the poor and downtrodden youth of Balochistan.
On the occasion, a short drama titled ‘Treasure’ was also played which was filmed by the students of Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University Balochistan.