Dr. Rasheed Masood Khan, Additional Secretary Finance Department, Government of Balochistan and the Chief Executive Officer, Balochistan Education Endowment Fund (BEEF), along with Shamshad Kausar, Programme Manager, BEEF signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Vice Chancellor of LUMS, Dr. Arshad Ahmad on May 6, 2019. The LUMS management present at the event were Dr. Tahir Andrabi, Dean Syed Ahsan Ali and Syed Maratib Ali School of Education (SOE); Dr. Adeel Zaffar, Assistant Professor Suleman Dawood School of Business (SDSB); Nuzhat Kamran, Director Office of Advancement and the Donor Relations team.
The National Outreach Programme (NOP) Centre at LUMS, during the past couple of years, has been collaborating with BEEF in order to spread the word regarding the University’s programmes within Balochistan. Furthermore, the NOP Centre has also been distributing their marketing material through BEEF and have encouraged students to apply for the pre-admission Summer Coaching Sessions at LUMS. Due to their efforts, 47 students from Balochistan qualified last year and attended the summer coaching sessions at LUMS, out of a total batch of 555 students. According to the MOU signed, BEEF will be supporting a number of NOP Scholars studying at LUMS.
Dr. Khan elaborated further on the BEEF model and explained how they have built an organisational structure over the past few years. Since inception, the Endowment Fund has facilitated about 19,000 students with their education. He added that Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy’s last evaluation led to a score of 83% for BEEF. He also shared that in order to decrease the drop out ratio for meritorious students, BEEF wanted to offer scholarships to them, in order to increase their district wise representation.
Dr. Ahmad also lauded their efforts towards making quality education a reality, and suggested ways to increase outreach activities within Balochistan in order to promote the number of applications from the province. Ms. Kamran also asked BEEF authorities to support LUMS with running various awareness and information sessions in different schools and colleges within Balochistan, specifically with regards to financial aid opportunities.
Towards the end of the ceremony, it was unanimously decided that BEEF would collaborate with LUMS to support students from Balochistan gain admission at the University.
