Queen Mary University of London and Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) have signed a new agreement to promote women’s higher education in Pakistan, through joint activities and programmes in the fields of Linguistics and English Language Teaching.
The new partnership coincides with widespread media attention over the state of female education in Pakistan.
Kathryn Richardson - Chair of the Language Centre within Queen Mary’s School of Languages and Linguistics and Film (SLLF) - visited Lahore last week to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with LCWU.
Kathryn comments: "We are proud to sign such a prestigious collaboration with a university of the standing of LCWU, which offers a wide range of programmes across so many disciplines. We look forward to a long and sustainable partnership and to seeing the fruits of our work inspire generations of students to come."
Joint activities with LCWU may include workshops, collaborative teaching, staff and student exchanges, publication exchanges and staff visits.
Professor Sabiha Mansoor, Vice Chancellor of LCWU, has a background in English Language and Linguistics teaching and research and is the author of several international publications in the area of language. She welcomed the new collaboration with Queen Mary and expressed optimism that the universities would work to bring English to public sector universities, but also help in developing the teaching of national and regional languages.
Some 250 students from Pakistan are currently pursuing their studies at Queen Mary. Located within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets - home to the UK’s largest South Asian community – the university is working to build strong relationships with local people as well as communities overseas, through international partnerships.
LCWU has played an important role in educating women in Pakistan and will be working with Queen Mary to continue improving the quality of the experience both institutions offer their students.
Queen Mary hopes to expand its existing links with Pakistani universities, focusing on joint research, staff and student mobility and the development of collaborative degree programmes.
The university has contributed much to the development of women in education and continues to celebrate its historic roots in the pioneering Westfield College for women, founded in 1882. In 2013 Queen Mary earned bronze and silver Athena SWAN awards for improving gender equality.
The Institute of Language and Culture (ILC) at LCWU and SLLF at Queen Mary will explore collaboration in the areas of Applied Linguistics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The primary focus of joint activities will be the creation of an English Language Support Unit at LCWU to provide an intensive course in English - English for All: Access and Equity for Higher Education and Employment - to support students entering the University from Urdu backgrounds.
A ceremony in October was attended by LCWU students and staff, the Regional Director of the Higher Education Commission Mr Nazir Hussain and Secretary of Higher Education, Mr Sohail Shahzad who congratulated LCWU on this initiative and thanked Queen Mary for the university’s support for higher education in Pakistan.
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