A three-day international conference on 'Physics and Contemporary Needs' on Wednesday began at the Government College University, Lahore under the auspices of the university's Physics Department, Centre for Advanced Studies in Physics (CASP), Rafi Chair and Higher Education Commission.
Punjab University vice chancellor Professor Dr Mujahid Kamran was the chief guest at the opening ceremony of conference which comprised 10 technical sessions and two poster exhibitions. In his keynote address, Professor Mujahid Kamran said Pakistan was a country of 182 million people but it had GDP of just 225 million dollars, however, the US had population of 330 million but its GDP was 16,000 to 17,000 billion dollars, and the major reason for that disparity was due to a fact that the US had over the 150 years consistently invested in the creation of new knowledge. "The US invests five to seven percent of their GDP on higher education and two to three percent on research and development, but unfortunately Pakistan do not spends more than two percent on higher education, and 0.1 percent of GDP on research and development," he added.
He said no change would come until or unless the government, at the highest level, understood that there was no shortcut to find an honourable place in the global arena and they had set their priorities right. He called upon the government to allocate four to five percent of GDP for higher education and to begin with at least one percent of GDP for research and development, saying that "then, the government would see the real difference." He also highlighted that only 22 to 25 percent faculty in noted universities of Pakistan held the doctorate degree. However, he said ideally, 90 percent of the faculty in universities must be PhD and it would certainly enhance the overall research output and production of new PhDs.
The PU Vice Chancellor congratulated GCU on completing 150 years of excellence, saying GCU was the pride of Pakistan, and Ravians had more civil awards to their credit than the students of any other educational institution of the country. Speaking on the occasion, VC Professor Dr Muhammad Khaleeq-ur-Rahman highlighted a dire need for strong collaboration of academia with industry for the creation of new knowledge. He also mentioned that Pakistan had only one Nobel Laureate in the field of Physics who was an eminent Old Ravian, Professor Dr Abuds Salam. He also said that GCU CASP had played a very vital role in development of Physics in the country, adding that more than 60 experts who were the part of the team which carried out nuclear explosions in 1998 had been educated and trained at the Government College, Lahore.
The VC said the proceedings of this conference on physics would be published in one month time as per the best international standards and would be forwarded to the abstracting agencies. In his opening remarks, Dr Muhammad Zakria Butt, the conference chairman and Professor Rafi Chair, said the importance of physics was quite evident from its utilisation in numerous areas ranging from home appliances to space exploration. He expressed a great pleasure that three Japanese physicists, this year, had received the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the new energy-efficient and environment friendly - the blue light - which had revolutionised the illumination technology.
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