Pakistani students making their country proud at the International Physics Olympiad
At the 54th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), which took place in Isfahan, Iran, from July 21 to 28, the Pakistani team won three bronze medals. Mohammad Saad Bilal (Siddeeq Public School & College, Rawalpindi) received an honourable mention for Pakistan, while Talha Ashraf (Nixor College, Karachi), Huzaifa Altamash (Lahore Grammar School, Senior Boys Campus, Johar Town, Lahore), and Mohammad Salman Tarar (The Science School, H-9/1, Islamabad) won bronze medals.
Sponsored by the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Science (PIEAS) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the STEM Careers Programme allowed the team to compete in the Physics Olympiad. At PIEAS, Islamabad, Dr. Mohammad Irfan and Prof. Dr. Amanur Rehman trained the Physics team. Prof. Dr. Najeebur Rehman and Dr. Rahmatullah from Comsats, Islamabad, lead the team in the competition. For the first time, all four of the team members who trained at PIEAS this year have been awarded medals and diplomas.
Every year, PIEAS, which is a division of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), holds the National Science Talent Contest (NSTC) in four different academic areas: mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. The National Physics Talent Contest (NPTC), which PIEAS launched in 1995 and has been held yearly since 2003, is the predecessor of the NSTC. The competition seeks to revitalise science education at the intermediate level, which is significant for students’ professional career choices and includes the ninth, tenth, O Level, FSc Part-I, and A Level Part-I.
Students chosen for the National Science Talent Corps (NSTC) in 19 different cities in Pakistan receive additional training through the STEM Careers Program in order to compete in International Science Olympiads (ISOs) at four home institutes. These institutes offer residential training camps to the top 50 candidates in the screening test, which serves as an intense preparation for the ISOs.
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