Recently, the 2021 High-level Forum on Rural Development was held in Beijing. A list of 106 award-winning cases in the second “Global Poverty Reduction Cases Collection” was released on the forum. Among them, Taking the Initiative to Undertake Overseas Corporate Social Responsibility through Education and Poverty Alleviation– A case study of “China Three Gorges-Pakistan Scholarship Program” was rated as the best case for poverty reduction.
The selected Pakistan Scholarship Program has improved China’s poverty reduction development discourse system from multiple perspectives and levels, demonstrated the replicable path of China’s poverty reduction program, and provided an experience for the sustainable development of developing countries.
The program is the first full scholarship program funded by Chinese enterprises to assist immigrants from the Pakistan reservoir area with long-term planning. It is funded by China Three Gorges South Asia Investment Ltd. Through the order-based commission training model, it is jointly established by Jiangxi University of Science and Technology (JXUST) and Punjab University (PU) to train the Bachelor’s degree Scholarship Program of Electrical Engineering. PU in Pakistan provides students with professional studies for the first two years, while JXUST in China trains students for professional studies, internships and graduation internships for the next two years, as well as the implantation of the Chinese language and Chinese culture. In addition to fully subsidizing students’ study, life and cross-border travel, China Three Gorges Corporation also provides them with hydropower on-site internship opportunities. The first class of students have graduated and will serve the three Gorges International Hydropower Project in South Asia.
Since the implementation of the program, a total of 33 outstanding students from two batches have been selected for study and exchange between China and Pakistan, which has been highly affirmed by the education authorities and schools of the two countries and widely supported by the public.
The program was officially launched in 2017, opening up a new mode of tripartite cooperation among universities, Confucius Institutes and enterprises in training local technical talents, and providing a new example for colleges and universities to carry out intercollegiate cooperation, school-enterprise cooperation and China-Pakistan cooperation in running schools. It has made positive contributions to serving the “Belt and Road Initiative”, promoting the construction of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Pak-China friendship.
