HYDERABAD: The 3rd National Conference on English Language and Literature-2021 (NCELL-21) was organized by the Institute of English Language and Literature (IELL), University of Sindh Jamshoro, which was inaugurated by Vice-Chancellor Professor (Meritorious) Dr. Muhammad Siddique Kalhoro in the Shaikh Ayaz Auditorium, Arts Faculty Building here on Wednesday.
The conference was attended by English language experts, researchers and professors from different universities of the country including Lahore, Quetta, and Islamabad, Jamshoro, Nawabshah, Karachi and other cities. Some scholars from Germany, Norway and Costa Rica participated and presented their research online in the conference.
Addressing the conference, SU Vice-Chancellor Professor (Meritorious) Dr Muhammad Siddique Kalhoro said that holding of conferences was beneficial for students, scholars, and researchers equally and when it came to a national conference on English language and literature, it was uniformly valuable and significant for the scholars of every field.
“The importance of the English language in today’s world cannot be denied; it’s actually a modern weapon that can be used to eradicate the menace of poverty and terrorism from the society”, he said.
He said that there were 35 faculty members in the Institute of English Language and Literature, out of which over 22 had earned their PhD degrees from the United Kingdom, USA and other countries.
He claimed that there were more qualified teachers in the English department of the University of Sindh than in the English department of Karachi University or any other major university in the country.
Dr. Kalhoro further said that as many as 250 scholars were engaged in conducting their research in IELL alone, whose research topics had been approved and they were in the research phase in the fields of English language and literature.
“This is a big number of scholars conducting research in linguistics and literature. Besides this, many are doing their coursework in MPhil & PhD”, he established.
He said that the government had asked all the universities to ensure maximum participation of students in positive academic and research activities.
“That is why we volunteered our own students during the entrance test to ensure their participation in the academic process and help them build their confidence”, the Vice-Chancellor said. In his keynote speech, the Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Media Studies & Art and Design, Lahore College of Economics and the English Language Specialist Dr. Shahid Siddiqui said that a language was not only a means of communication, but also related to politics and power.
He said that the importance of language and literature must be understood. “We should all be proud of our local languages,” he said and added that more than 68 languages were spoken in Pakistan, which were required to be given due weight and significance.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021