Pakistan — a country of over 200 million souls, although the sixth largest (population wise) country of the world, yet it has not been able to fully tap the potential and resources and has literacy rate less than 60%. The percentage of population seeking/getting higher education is much, much lower.
As such, there’s no dearth of talent and genius minds in the country, the access to higher education has always been a big question mark. Although the public sector universities and higher education institutes in the country have highly subsidized fee structure, yet these have never been able to accommodate all the students seeking higher education. Also, most of the sought after and top universities of the country are in private sector with fees much higher than public sector universities.
Universities like Ghulam Ishaq Khan University, LUMS, IBA, NUST, Habib University, KSBL etc are considered as the best universities in the country but they do have higher fee structures as well. These universities do provide lots of scholarships and grants, still the requirement for financial assistance is huge.
In the past, may talented students although getting admission offer (after completely fulfilling the “Merit” criteria of the top notch universities of Pakistan), didn’t take admission in those universities because of severe financial constraints. In this scenario, emerged Ihsan Trust in 2010 and since then, one of the biggest ray of hope and light for the students seeking higher education in Pakistan has been the Ihsan Trust – a beacon of hope for higher education in Pakistan.
Founded and registered as a Trust in January 2010 (under Trust Act 1882), Ihsan Trust (IT) is basically a ‘Waqf’ which has so far enlightened the lives of many needy but talented students and because of Ihsan Trust’s assistance, a lot of families have come out of the vicious poverty cycle.
Ihsan Trust is fully working on its mission to provide assistance to the students (lacking financial resources) seeking higher education across Pakistan. It has signed Memorandum of Understanding with 121 Universities and Professional bodies (so far) across Pakistan and is providing Interest Free Loan facility to their needy students. Ihsan Trust provides this Interest Free Loan facility (also known as Qarz-e-Hasna) to the students needing financial assistance, after their Intermediate studies from Undergraduates (Bachelors) to Masters, MPhil and Phd i.e. Graduate and Post Graduate levels.
Alhamdulillah, with more than 2,000 students of 121 universities and professional bodies already provided this facility, the aim is to increase the number gradually and for this Ihsan Trust is continuously reaching out to more universities and professional bodies in order to achieve its mission and objectives. The aim is to provide assistance to more and more students gradually crossing 2,500 figure mark by the year end 2018 and reaching up to 10,000 students by year end 2020.
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Some of the top universities with which Ihsan Trust is working and providing financial assistance to their students are:
- IBA Karachi
- LUMS
- NUST
- Ghulam Ishaq Khan University
- NED UET Karachi
- COMSATS (all campuses across Pakistan)
- FAST NU (all campuses across Pakistan)
- University of Karachi
- Dow University of Health Science
- SZABIST
- IMSciences Peshawar
- IoBM
- Habib University
- National Textile University
- Textile Institute of Pakistan
- International Islamic University Islamabad
- Riphah University
- PAF KIET
- Sukkur IBA etc.
Ihsan Trust is currently the largest Interest Free Loan provider for higher education in Pakistan. Besides the regular Interest Free Loan facility, the Ihsan Trust also provides regular support and funding for the premier business school of Pakistan i.e. Institute of Business Administration’s (IBA) Karachi’s ‘National Talent Hunt Program’ (known as IBA Ihsan Trust National Talent Hunt Program) and to date has sponsored over 180 students pursuing their Bachelors Degree Program from IBA.
Alhamdulillah, not only Ihsan Trust is being recognized as a major player in financing and supporting the higher education in the country, but Ihsan Trust’s contributions are now being recognized globally as well. Ihsan Trust has received the ‘Islamic Economy Award 2017 in Dubai in Nov 2017. The annual award recognizes innovative world-class business initiatives and ideas that have contributed to the social and economic welfare of the Muslim population. Of the total nine (09) categories, Ihsan Trust won the award in the category of ‘Waqf and Endowment.’ It’s a real honor that an organization from Pakistan was selected and awarded at the global level. Ihsan Trust was the only organization from Pakistan which won the award in any category (out of all nine categories) in the said 2017 Awards.
Mr. Ahmed Ali Siddiqui — Treasurer Ihsan Trust received the award from Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council. This award is a symbol of appreciation, honour, a testimonial of recognition of Ihsan Trust’s services, increasing our credibility, reputation and top of it acknowledgement of our selfless services and efforts to help and assist the poor and needy and reinvigorate the concept of ‘Waqf’ in Islamic world.
With duly certified by Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP), Ihsan Trust is continuously working on its mission to enable the students (on merit) of Pakistan to take admission in their choice of university and choice of program without worrying about the fee and financial resources. May Allah accept all our sincere efforts – Ameen!!
[box type=”note” align=”” class=”” width=””]For further details about Ihsan Trust, kindly visit its website www.ihsantrust.org and the Facebook page www.facebook.com/ihsantrust
The writer is the General Manager of Ihsan Trust[/box]