GCU and US University sign MoU

The vice-chancellor of GCU Lahore Professor Dr Khalid Aftab and Mohammad Kazim Khan, the representative of the Kent State University Ohio, USA signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) here in the vice chancellor's committee room on Friday.
This is in line with GCU's policy of developing academic links and research collaboration with the national and international research institutes and universities in order to raise GCU standard of education through mutual exchange of knowledge, research and experiences. According to this agreement the mutual exchange of faculty and students would be facilitated.
The representative of Kent State University told that the objective of MoU was to establish an international consortium of universities for research and graduate education and Kent State University will be the lead university whereas the founding institutions would include Allama Iqbal Open University Pakistan, BRAC University, Bangladesh, GC University Lahore, International Islamic University Islamabad, International Islamic University of Malaysia, Ibaraki University Japan, Izmir University of Economics Turkey, Lahore University of Management Sciences, TOBB Economics and Technology University Turkey, University of Bucharest Romania, University Kebangsaan Malaysia and Georgia Institute of technology USA.
All these universities and institutes would constitute COURAGE (Consortium of Universities for Research and Graduate Education) with the purpose to initiate set of students who may begin their doctoral work under a provisional COURAGE arrangement within conventional bilateral exchange provisions among the member institutions to foster collaborative graduate education and research.
He further said that the future vitality of scientific and technological prowess of a country crucially depends upon its ability to intellectually guide its young generation to take on the new challenges of globalisation. The doctoral programme of the new agreement is the most comprehensive one, which would produce the best and most promising future scientists, engineers and technology leaders for Pakistani society.
The VC of GCU Lahore Professor Dr Khalid Aftab said that technological changes were quite rapid but change in attitude towards acceptance of modern ideas was slower one and the better social change leading to understanding and harmony among the people of various regions or countries could be materialised only through exchange of students, scholars and teachers by exploring all forms of creative collaboration.
The VC further said that GCU would send 56 faculty members abroad for their Ph.D under Faculty Development Programme in coming years. Twenty-eight of them would be taken from social sciences whereas rest of would be taken from pure sciences in order to keep a balance between them.