University of the Punjab, the oldest seat of learning in Pakistan turned 135 years on Oct 14 that now emerged the best in public and private sectors varsities offering education in a record number of more than 82 disciplines with quite affordable fee structure.
Dr Zafar Mueen Nasar, its the 44th Vice Chancellor Friday reiterated his unwavering determination to get prestigious position in worldwide ranking by promoting ultra modern research besides de-politicizing the campus by strictly adhering to glory of merit in all disciplines and faculties.
Talking to faculty members here at his office, he said that now all out efforts are being made on war footings through a master plan to fully encourage faculty to conduct research on important topics at par with international standards and existing old courses of most of the disciplines have almost be revised keeping in view market oriented demands to help our students to compete locally and globally.
About merit he said that by the grace of Allah, all new admission to MA, MSc, BS Honor 4-year are being conducted absolutely on merit under the supervision of a 30 members high level committee headed by senior most Dean Faculty of Engineering Prof Dr Muhammad Taqi Zahid Butt. He said that not even a single complaint has so far surfaced which speaks of the good governance. "The Faculty Development Programme is among several capacity-building projects introduced in this regard," he said.
Zafar said that first time in the history, a record number of higher selection boards are being conducted on regular basis and vacant posts of teachers and non-teaching staff are being filled in on merit after giving proper advertisement in the newspapers. He said that in order to select the best of the best candidates, the services of the top class subject specialists have been acquired.
VC said the university had recently introduced a campus mail system to improve coordination with the university's 39,000 students. He said the university had also improved linkages with foreign universities and had signed MOU several agreements on student exchange, foreign language courses and cultural-educational visits. He said the university had also reorganized its human resource department and had regularized employees.
The first vice chancellor was James Broadwood Lyall, after whom Lyallpur was named now renamed as Faisalabad. Zafar Mueen Nasar said that "we will celebrate 135 years of the varsity and Institute of Communication Studies organizes a ceremony followed by cake cutting ceremony".