Walter Elias Disney once said that “Our greatest national resource is in the minds of our children” but unfortunately in the case of Pakistan, this isn’t holds true for our greatest minds have been stuck here for more than 2 years now. The havoc wretched by COVID-19 since the beginning of 2020 is no new news to anyone but what happened after it remains a history.
Around 7K students who returned to Pakistan during the initial months of 2020 are now left to fend for themselves. These 7k students include research scholars, doctoral candidates and engineers. They have been endlessly waiting to receive their degrees and are currently on extensions. This is not the first time when students have been running from pillar to post but in the past as well Dawn has picked up the grave issue of suffering of the students.
In February 2022 some students even received visas from China but the price of one-way ticket rounded around 506000/- fixed by Pakistan International Airlines. Besides this, the quarantine expenses made the matter bad to worse as the cost of the tickets became sky-rocketing thus making it near impossible by the students to bear the price. Looking at the current socio-political bond which Pakistan and China shares it becomes difficult to comprehend as why does Pakistani government did not take any substantial steps for the welfare of their students. Earlier as well students have raised the concern when former Prime Minister, Imran Khan was in power and till now no vital steps have borne fruits. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif could undeniably resolve the issue by signing an MOU with the Chinese government like the Korean and Russian governments did for their students. Koreans were allowed to enter China since 2020 when there wasn’t even a discovery of COVID vaccine. The discrimination Pakistani students are constantly facing for past 2.5 years could be credited to the failed foreign policy of the nation, incompetence of the ruling government and ignorance of Shah Mahmood Qureshi, VC PTI. Many PhD scholars lost their degrees amid the delay of re-opening of educational institutions in China. Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister, Planning & Development has also assured to take immediate steps but as of now only a batch of 251 students have been issued visa. Not only this, but Rana Tanveer Hussain, Minister of Federal Education also assured to take the matter at hand but until now what students have received is only empty-promises. The issue becomes all the more significant as China had already resumed intake of students from Armenia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand but discrimination against Pakistani students hints at hidden implicit political agendas between the iron brothers.
Various efforts have been taken by the students in the past but all in vain. When former Prime Minister, Imran Khan was on his visit to China, students took the Twitter by storm and the #PMStudentsWantExactDate was among the top 10 trends across Twitter for 3 days. Dr. Asmat Malik and Jimmy have been unanimously termed as students representative who are leaving no stone unturned to provide the matter its due recognition. Several Twitter handles like ‘Take us back to China’, ‘Struggle for future’, ‘Medical students life matter China’ are some among the many Twitter accounts that are working tirelessly for the cause.
Morale of the students have also been declined as China has allowed India students to resume their classes despite having major political rift between both the nations.
As of now, we could only hope and urge to those in power that justice would be served to our students as what’s at stake could not be comprised at any cost. The loss of these years could not be recovered but it’s better late than never.
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