1,976 students graduate at 24th NED convocation

Karachi

As many as 1,976 students were awarded degrees at the 24th convocation of the NED University of Engineering and Technology on Thursday.

The ceremony was held at the main campus of the university in which 1,439 undergraduate students in 23 disciplines received Bachelor’s degrees and 535 postgraduate students in 21 disciplines were awarded Master’s degrees. 

Two doctorate degrees were conferred on two assistant professors, namely Dr Amir Zeb of the electronic engineering and Syed Abbas Ali of the computer and information systems engineering.

A total of 1,325 candidates received degrees during the event, including 1,217 in Bachelor’s programme and 106 students in Master’s programme, whereas remaining students were conferred degrees in absentia.

Out of the 23 disciplines, 21 position holders were awarded two gold medals each, while the remaining two toppers were only given one gold medal. Unfortunately, it was said that the university could not arrange gold medals for two students because of a lack of sponsorship. However, a female student was also awarded a laptop during the ceremony.

Lauding the services of minorities in Pakistan, the chief guest of the event, Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani, said the Parsi community had also done remarkable jobs in various sectors like health and development of country’s infrastructure.

He said the community had also rendered its services for spreading quality education and the NED University was one of its extraordinary contributions.

While congratulating graduating students, the chairman Senate said, “You are about to enter into the professional life, which is also a challenging part; your shoulders should be strong enough to take the responsibilities to encounter problems and difficulties.”

He said the speech of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, which he delivered on August 11, 1947, provided a way to deal with challenges like terrorism, corruption, division of people on sectarian and ethnic backgrounds.

Rabbani observed that parents, teachers and students were responsible to take the country on the right track.

He urged the students to explore the opportunities in Pakistan and serve the country with their skills and expertises instead of going abroad.

However, many students, including position holders, at the convocation did not seem to follow Rabbani’s advice immediately.

Talking to The News, fresh graduates spoke about the problems that they were facing in the job market.

A student said that there was a dearth of lucrative opportunities in the industry and he was looking to go abroad to find a better job.

Standing by him, another student believed that quota system, transfer of industries outside Pakistan due to lawlessness, power failures and corruption had resulted in the destruction of local industry and its job market.

A group of graduating students demanded that discriminatory quota system should be revoked, which in their words was imposed by a politician to gain more popularity among his voters.

“The government has reduced grants of universities and want us to shine in our fields. How it would happen as we were unable to do practical work in laboratories due to shortage of funds which directly affected our learning process?” a young graduate asked.

The position holder of the metallurgical engineering, Syed Nabeel Ahmed, told The News that he was looking to go to Canada to for doing a Master’s in his field. “I don’t think there are too many jobs in Pakistan to accommodate all the fresh engineers. I believe that I will have a chance to excel in my field if I get admission in any reputed Canadian university.”

According to him, students were compelled to focus more on theory rather than doing any practical work.

Earlier, Vice Chancellor NED University Professor Dr Muhammad Afzal Haque, shared the annual report with the audience and said the students of the NED were rendering their services in the process of nation building since 1922.

“[The] NED produces quality engineers, architects, planners, computer scientists and professional in applied sciences. Several young NED scholars at undergraduate and Master’s level have been selected to study in US and European universities for a semester through a competitive exchange programme,” he said.

He said that upon their return, their transcripts showed that they had completed their academic tasks aboard with flying colours.

“A sizeable number of our graduates have also stepped into job markets abroad and continue to make their presence felt through performance and progress.

“The university has become well initiated in research and publishing three scientific journals on regular frequency.”