UCL, UK and LCWU join hands to develop courses

University College London (UCL), UK and Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) join hands to develop courses on environment, climate change and sustainable development for various disciplines of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities (to be taught at BS and MS levels).
According to the spokesperson of the LCWU Higher Education Link Project between Environmental Science Department of LCWU and Department of Civil, Environment & Geomatic Engineering UCL is for the "Development of Collaborative Postgraduate Programme on Climate Change and Sustainable Development". The partnership is established under INSPIRE-Transnational Education Partnership Programme and is managed by British Council, Pakistan.
The 36 hours' course ended on Friday with certificate distribution ceremony in which Richard Weyers, Director, British Council, Lahore, Vice Chancellor LCWU Dr Sabiha Mansoor, Dr Sarah Bell, Faculty from UCL, UK, Professor Dr Kousar Jamal Cheema Dean of Natural Sciences LCWU and students participated.
Speaking on the occasion Richard Weyers, Director, British Council, Lahore, said such courses on climate change are very significant and useful for every society. Certificate course on climate change, policy and mitigation is a big success not only in terms of the course outputs but also for the establishment of new collaborations. He admired Ozone Cell Pakistan (UNEP), EPD, IUCN, Punjab Forest Department, Industries, Consultancies, NGOs and academic institutions for their contribution and participation in this activity. He said it has opened new vistas for joint research, course development and working together to look into the challenges and the solutions of problems in context of climate change and sustainable development at local, regional and global levels.
Speaking on the occasion Dr Sarah Bell from UCL said main activities of the project between UCL and LCWU are the development of courses and programmes for the new specialisation for the existing Environmental Science Programmes at MS & PhD levels: specialisation in climate change and specialisation in sustainable development, training courses for faculty, certificate courses for executives/professional, seminars for creating awareness on the issues of climate change and sustainable development.
Vice Chancellor Dr Sabiha Mansoor appreciated the collaboration and said although Pakistan's contribution to the total global greenhouse gas emissions is low but it is among the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change. It has a very low technical and financial capacity to adapt to its adverse impacts. To continue on a development path to achieve its goals, it is imperative to prepare the ground that would enable it to face these new challenges. Dr Mansoor added that one of the climate change policy objectives is to ensure the awareness, develop skills and institutional capacity of relevant stakeholders. The proposed programmes are in accordance with the National Climate Change Policy (2013) and National Sustainable Development Strategy (draft, 2012), Ministry of Climate Change, Government of Pakistan.
Dr Kousar Jamal Cheema Dean of Natural Sciences LCWU highlighted the aims of INSPIRE strategic partnership, said that UK-Pakistan links would be strengthened by encouraging the development of a wider partnership agenda. The other aims are to contribute to capacity building in HEIs through development of staff, their professional skills and international research competencies, raise the profile of the UK-Pakistan partnership as innovative and high quality through demonstrating how researchers and academicians can collaborate effectively, facilitate and build effective and sustainable partnerships based on research and teaching agendas which grow across the institutions involved, try possible models for future co-operation between the UK and Pakistani HEIs. Dr Sarah Bell said main activities of the project between UCL and LCWU are the development of courses and programmes for the new specialisation for the existing Environmental Science Programmes at MS & PhD levels: specialisation in climate change and specialisation in sustainable development, training courses for faculty, certificate courses for executives/professional, seminars for creating awareness on the issues of climate change and sustainable development.