ISLAMABAD – The CPEC Cultural Communication Centre (CCC) under its ‘TalentCorridor’ scheme will offer scholarships to 1,000 Pakistani students for aone-year vocational training starting from November this year in China.

“The students to be selected from across the country will be provided freetuition and dormitory during the training at different universities andinstitutes in China,” Echo Lee, Director General, CPEC CCC and CEO of StXianglin Management and Consulting Company while talking to APP here onSunday.

The CPEC CCC is located in China’s Suzhou Vocational University, which hasworld-class facilities and faculty. Its offers programmes such as Sino-Pakstudents exchange, academic research and seminars, vocational education,organising Chinese culture experience camp and teachers exchange, she added.

Giving further details about scholarship scheme, she said it is a threelevel programme and the students will be taught outer space and high-speedtrain technology during the first level while in the middle level, theywill be imparted education of hydro-power and solar energy engineering.

The students selected for the lowest level will get training to operatedifferent machines and types of equipment, including excavation machinesand caterpillar etc.

Lee said, this year, 1,000 students will be offered 20 majors from highlevel to lower level classes as compared to 100 scholarships in six majorslast year.

While hoping for a positive response and cooperation from the Pakistaniside, she said at present, the details are being discussed with theconcerned officials in the Pakistan ministry of planning, development andreforms as well as the embassy of Pakistan in Beijing.

She informed the CPEC CCC is jointly working along with the Chineseeducation ministry which is affiliated with a number of vocationaluniversities and institutes.

To a question, she claimed that vocational education in China is thehighest level in the world – in some areas it is better than Germany andJapan.

The CEO said this cross-border education exchange programme is step one ofthe overall project and added in the next phases, equipment and teacherswill be sent for vocational training of Pakistani students in Pakistan.

The Chinese vocational education centres, as well as educational parks,would be set up in Pakistan in future, she added.

About the cooperation in the past, she said her organisation has signed aMoU with Khyber Pakhtoonkhaw (KP) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) governments toset up cultural communication centres under the CPEC framework.

These centres will serve as the main forum in the field of Sino-Pakeducation and cultural communication, she added.