MIRPUR (AJK): Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan Monday inaugurated the sub-campus of state-run State-run Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Pallandri.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony, he emphasized the need to further enhance the academic quality of AJK universities and committed towards capacity building of the faculty and students.
Sardar Masood expressed his happiness on coming to Sudhanoti, which, he said, was the land of Ghazis and Shaheeds. It was the vision of Khan Muhammad Khan that today Azad Kashmir enjoyed the highest literacy rate in whole of Pakistan, he added.
He stressed the need for providing quality higher education in all districts of AJK, thereby helping cater to students living in far-flung areas. By introducing new and innovative disciplines in-sync with the job market, the universities would help produce the best human resource, he stressed.
The AJK president stressed on investing heavily in building skilled and educated human resource as they were the real capital of a country. He said the AJK universities would organise job fairs for their students at their campuses.
“We shall consolidate our universities qualitatively”, he said. He said,"We will focus on improving the quality at our public sector universities.
We will focus on promoting a knowledge based economy which will contribute to the economic growth of Pakistan."
The AJK president said the sub-campus despite numerous hurdles was now ready to accept aspiring students for the coming academic year.
He commended the MUST VC and management for effectively and efficiently working towards the timely inauguration of the sub-campus.
Initially, Pallandri campus will provide degree courses in Law, Tourism and Hospitality, Forestry; and in the coming years Computer Systems Engineering and Environmental Engineering will be introduced.
He also lauded the valuable assistance of the Higher Education Commission and Dr. Najeeb Naqi in facilitating the establishment of Palandri sub-campus.
President Masood said their efforts would be focused towards establishing state of the art tertiary educational facilities with experienced and professional faculty members. He said merit would not be compromised upon and by promoting innovation, research and academic collaborations with leading Pakistani and international universities "we will ensure the best education is provided at all public sector universities of AJK."
He also informed that issues related to the Mong campus of Poonch University will be resolved soon.
Masood Khan said that AJK held immense potential for tourism due to its natural beauty and the introduction of disciplines like tourism and hospitality would help immensely towards making it into a full-fledged industry.
This, he said, would play an invaluable role in promoting tourism on professional grounds and in-turn positively contribute towards generating revenue for AJK.
He said plans were already underway to construct a 200 km long tourism corridor passing through all the tourist sites and districts of AJK.
The corridor would have all the necessary infrastructure for attracting domestic and foreign tourists. Priority, he said, was being given to the development of the road network and quality lodging to facilitate the tourists.
The AJK president also stressed the need to actively highlight the Kashmir issue."Our innocent brothers and sisters are being subjected to unimaginable torture at the hands of Indian occupation forces.
They are being harassed, murdered, maimed, illegally incarcerated and the womenfolk are openly dishonoured." He urged the participants to join hands in raising the profile of the Kashmir conflict at all international forums.
Earlier in his address of Welcome, Vice Chancellor MUST Prof. Dr. Habib ur Rehman thanked the AJK president for his continued support in helping establish the Pallandri campus of his varsity. He said a permanent building of the Palandri campus would be built soon as its PC-I would be submitted to Higher Education Commission of Pakistan this year.
Later, the president also distributed sewing machines amongst deserving women at government rest house Pallandri. Deputy Commissioner Palandri Javed Iqbal and other officials of the District Administration were present on the occasion.
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