The HEC Commission has set out a vision for its reform program that aims to transform Pakistani universities into world-class seats of learning and advancement of knowledge. This need to be done to create a modern, progressive, tolerant and prosperous society that values the dignity of labour, craftsmanship, spirit of inquiry, critical thinking, and public duty.
KUST bears a special responsibility for the full range of students and teachers. We therefore need to contribute to the efforts to improve the education of the diverse set of people coming from a range of backgrounds who want to be educated to productively participate in our rapidly changing society.
Kohat University of Science and Technology has articulated its pledge to develop into one of the premier universities with excellent research and teaching facilities. The University is endeavouring to be at the forefront of science and technology such that to provide the entrepreneur, research, education, and other client agencies with innovative ideas through the batches of highly motivated, ambitious, and forward-looking graduates. To develop and sustain high quality education, KUST is placing strong academic systems designed to support students from every walk of life.
OBJECTIVES OF KUST:
-- Promote and facilitate the advancement and dissemination of knowledge in the country in general and in N.W.F.P, in particular
-- Undertake research on goal-oriented problems in those areas where fast solution may be expected through the introduction of such facilities;
-- Hold workshops and colloquia for training of manpower
-- Create awareness about the various programs offered and to ensure their accessibility
-- Extend advanced facilities in said programs to the students and scientists from neighbouring countries for collaborative education and research
INSTITUTIONS AND DEPARTMENTS:
(i) Institute of Management Sciences
(ii) Institute of Information Technology
(iii) Institute of Education & Research
(iv) KUST Institute of Medical Sciences
(v) Department of Microbiology
(vi) Department of Chemistry
(vii) Department of Physics
(viii) Department of Mathematics
(ix) Department of Botany
(x) Department of Zoology
(xi) Department of English
(xii) Department of Biotechnology
All the institutes/departments offer 4-year BS (Hons) and a 2-year MSc followed by a 2-year MPhil. The KUST Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) offers 5-year MBBS programme.
We also plan to establish the Deptt. Of Software Engg. Electronics, Computer Engineering, Pharmacy, journalism and Mass Communication, Religious Studies and Philosophy.etc.
STUDENTS' STRENGTH:
Growth in the demand for education at KUST and strict application of tighter selection criteria has led to a student body of a gradually improving caliber: this is evident from the fact that in 2001 and 2002, we admitted about 79% of the applicants. In 2003 and 2004, the percentage of enrolment dropped down respectively to 66% and 63%. Enrolment dropped down further to 37% in 2005 (Fig. 1).
As we confront a decade of enrolment growth, our challenge is to continue to deliver quality education. Today, KUST has about 2,000 students at all the levels: BSc (Hons); MS, MPhil; PhD. The last two programs are under a sand-witched program whereby it's primarily for college teachers who attend classes of theory in summer vacations and work in the field or labs while back to their parent departments.
FACULTY AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT:
To keep the faculty and the administrative staff abreast of the latest trends in science and technology, and to build their capacity, there are short-term (from a few days to a months); medium term (from a month to six months); and long-term trainings (a year to four years). Under the short-term trainings, we send our faculty members and administrative staff mostly for in-country trainings. Such trainings are funded by the University. As for foreign training, these are sponsored and partly funded by the HEC. Recently 35 overseas Scholarships for P.hD are advertised by the university.
QUALITY ASSURANCE:
We on our part are in the thought process of having a system that would guarantee efficiency on the one hand and reward (and retribution) on the other. To do so, we have already introduced the system of teachers evaluation by students such that the end-product is a solid figure (on a scale of 1 to 10, for example) that conclusively suggest 'retain', 'promote' 'reward' 'warn', 'retribute', or 'reject', etc.
We also want to bring improvement in the system of financial management together with the administrative hierarchy. Both of these, we believe, are the hurdles in progress and development, especially in way of an upcoming seat of learning like KUST.
PROMOTION OF RESEARCH:
In a matter of last one year, we have developed and submitted the following 8 research proposals costing Rs 33.291 million while an equal number of proposals is under development:
(i) Reevaluation & standardisation of selected herbal products for export
(ii) Establishment of Mushroom Culture Lab. at KUST
(iii) Reconstruction of Chromosomal Inheritance in Pedigree of Pakistani Wheat Cultivators
(iv) Establishment of Apiculture in KUST
(v) Non-Linear Photo-Acoustic Phenomena in Opaque Solids
(vi) Isolation, Structure, Elucidation, and Biological Activity of some medicinal plants belonging to the family Labiatae, and Compositae
(vii) Botanical, Chemical, and Pharmacological studies of important medicinal plants farm at Kohat University of Science and Technology
(viii) Opto-acoustic Spectroscopy of the Relaxing Liquids
When completed, the results of these researches would be available to all those who want to excel in these fields or make use of the findings, whichever the case may be.
MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING:
To serve the purpose of higher education, KUST has gone in to agreements with a number of national and international organisations. Prominent among them are the MoUs signed for Industrial and International Linkages, University of Tsukuba, Japan, Qarshi Research International (Pvt.) Ltd, International Center for Chemical Sciences, Karachi, Saga University, Japan.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
WIRELESS INTERNET CONNECTIVITY:
Of late, KUST has successfully established a 10km bi-directional 2MB wireless Stream to the Internet. The University has now its own servers to cater to all the need-based information processing with high speed. With support from the HEC, it is planned to double the speed of connectivity to 4MB. A video-processing facility is in the pipeline.
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTATION CLUSTER:
To facilitate research in Bioinformatics, Physics and Maths, KUST has recently established LINUX-based High Performance Computation (HPC) Cluster with 32 nodes. This will soon be upgraded and connected to biological database globally. The establishment of HPC and the resultant access to high-speed Internet will open new avenues of development for the students, researchers and the faculty.
It will thus play a vital role in the advancement of research and education in the University.KUST is in the process of establishing a "Technology Resource Center" where bench top research can be transformed first in to pilot scale production and later in to small or medium size entrepreneurship to suit a local needs. The programme is intended to aim at poverty alleviation through knowledge based industrial economy.
THE WAY AHEAD:
KUST has recently been granted Rs 460 million for the development of infrastructure and for human resource development. In HRD alone, the University shall be spending about 147 million rupees to train its staff at PhD level in some of the best universities of Europe and the Far East, including China.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
We believe that KUST should support a more systemic and pragmatic approach to improving education at all levels. Such an approach should go beyond the usual range of education to address education as a continuous system: from childhood education through the lifelong learning that is becoming increasingly important for a rapidly changing society.
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