PESHAWAR: Female students sent by the Local Government Elections and Rural Development Department on a fully-funded master’s scholarship programme to the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, have completed their master’s programmes.
The scholarships were awarded under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Cities Improvement Project (KPCIP) and funded by the Asian Development Bank under its ADF grant 13.
They were awarded their degrees at a convocation ceremony organized by AIT in their honor. Three out of 30 KPCIP scholars were awarded gold medals with distinction from AIT, including Zara Khadija, who received the Robert C.
Bodden Prize for being the most outstanding woman in the Faculty of Public Policy and Sustainable Development.
Similarly, Alina Dawood received the Mahesh Varma Prize in Construction, Engineering, and Infrastructure Management under the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Aiman Khan received the Yoshiro Takasaki Prize in Urban Innovation and Sustainability under the Faculty of Climate Change and Sustainability.
The initiative aimed to strengthen women’s participation in technical and leadership sectors linked to urban development, municipal infrastructure, climate resilience, and sustainable city planning.
The programme reserved 55 fully funded scholarship opportunities for women from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, creating pathways for higher education in fields traditionally underrepresented by women.
In May 2024, KPCIP and AIT signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to operationalize this strategic academic partnership. Subsequently, in August 2024, the first cohort of 30 female scholars commenced their 22-month master’s degree programs at AIT in Thailand.
“This initiative was in line with the vision of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Imran Khan to promote education and ensure equal opportunities for women,” said LGE&RDD Minister Meena Khan Afridi.
Project Director KPCIP Hameedullah Shah said that the achievement represented a historic milestone for KPCIP and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “Among all participating countries, KPCIP scholars stood distinguished as no other country recorded multiple Gold Medal recipients at AIT in the same academic year,” he added.
