130th convocation: PU VC urges students to play role in development of country, society

LAHORE: Punjab University Vice Chancellor Prof Niaz Ahmad has urged the students to understand their responsibilities and contribute towards the development of Pakistan as well as society. He was addressing the 130th Convocation of Punjab University organized at Faisal Auditorium here on Saturday.

Pro Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Saleem Mazhar, Registrar Dr Muhammad Khalid Khan, Controller of Examinations Muhammad Rauf Nawaz, Additional Controller Raja Shahid Javed, members of Senate, Syndicate, senior faculty members and a large number of students participated in the event.

Addressing the ceremony, Prof Niaz Ahmad said that rigorous efforts had been put in higher education institutions of Pakistan due to which they were making rapid progress in the world. Otherwise, he said, the universities in Pakistan could have faced the same fate which our other national public sector institutions were suffering from.

He said that it was his dream to bring PU among the top 500 institutions of the world and he started efforts for this in 2018. In 2018, PU’s position in Asian ranking of the universities by QS was 232nd while in 2021, PU had been declared 145th best university in Asia among thousands of universities. In 2018, PU was counted among top 78 percent universities of the world and now in 2021, PU had performed among top 62 percent universities of the world, which was a great achievement as it was difficult to improve even one percent when one was competing at international level where all were making efforts to progress.

He said that for the first time in 2018, PU’s 3 subjects were ranked at international level and now in 2021, Punjab University had become the only university in Pakistan whose 13 subjects had been ranked and in the subject of petroleum engineering, PU had been ranked among top 100-150 institutions in the world.

He said that for these landmark achievements, a number of initiatives had been taken in the university. He said that for the first time, the university was being run by statutory bodies and their regular meetings were being held as per the requirements of the university calendar. Seven meetings of PU Senate had been organized in three and a half years while in the recent past a gap of 8 to 10 years could be witnessed between the two meetings of the Senate.

He said that the number of professors and associate professors had never crossed the figure of 70 each but now we have more than 150 professors and 150 associate professors at the same time. He said that the university had given special attention to those research projects which aimed at solving socio-economic problems and contributed towards national development.

He said that for the first time, regular appointments of professionals had been made on the most coveted administrative posts of Registrar, Controller, and Resident Officer 1 etc through advertisement and teachers had been relieved from such assignments. He said that the appointment of Pro Vice Chancellor had also been ensured to create a second leadership. He urged the students to become a civilized and a law-abiding citizen and adopt good behaviour with parents, relatives and colleagues. He said that they must make efforts to make the institutions profitable wherever they would work. He congratulated all the graduating students and their parents.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021