SSUET awards degrees to over 1,500 graduates

Karachi

As many as 1,529 graduates of BS and MS programmes received their degrees at the 19th convocation of the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology on Saturday.

The event was held at the Expo Centre where position holders were also awarded with gold, silver and bronze medals for securing the highest marks in their respective disciplines.

Sadia Ghani Malik of Computer Engineering, Gul-e-Zehra of Electronic Engineering, Fiza Burney of Telecommunication Engineering, Rabia Mahmood of Biomedical Engineering, Muhammad Bilal Wasim of Civil Engineering and Wajiha Latif Khan of Computer Science received gold medals for securing first positions.

Nimra Khan of Computer Engineering, Amber Jabeen of Electronic Engineering, Muhammad Atiq of Telecommunication Engineering, Tehreem Hamid of Biomedical Engineering, Syeda Shadab Raza of Civil Engineering and Sara Shakeel of Computer Science received silver medals for securing second highest marks in their disciplines.

Mahrose Fatima Naqvi of Computer Engineering, Farheen Nasir of Electronic Engineering, Sidra Gul of Telecommunication Engineering, Hira Sohail of Biomedical Engineering, Olas Yar of Civil Engineering and Arsalan Ahmed Khan of Computer Science were awarded bronze medals.

Addressing the students as the chief guest, Chairman Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, Professor Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, said, “Graduation is the beginning of your professional life. While you prepare to enter practical phase of your career, never forget that a large segment of our society is deprived of the basic amenities of life and facing hardship. Do try to help the mankind. Do further strengthen name and image of the university and bring honour to the nation.”

Mukhtar advised graduates to remain committed to the values inculcated in them by the institute abd focus on justice, fair play and team spirit.

Meanwhile, SSUET Chancellor Jawaid Anwar said Muslims ruled the world because they were highly advanced in education and learning. “The western world took advantage of Muslim discoveries and inventions and developed their countries on the basis of their work,” he said. “Education makes society grow and survive and only educated people may bring change in the society in a positive direction.”

The SSUET Chancellor Jawaid Anwar revealed the university was going to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Hussain Ebrahim Jamal research Institute of Chemistry of University of Karachi for doing joint research.

Extending his congratulations to the graduates, he said that faculty had tried to give the university a new look by endeavouring to develop along on modern lines. He informed the audience that the institute’s career planning and placement bureau had been replaced with Centre for Guidance/Counselling and Career Planning/Placement. He said the Quality Enhancement Cell was also developed to be productive and result oriented and it now focused on training programmes for faculty members and students alike.

“We familiarise incoming students with university’s faculty and guide them in pursuit of their academic excellence in different directions making them more responsible, focused and disciplined,” he said. “The Quality Enhancement Cell has been developed to strengthen the varsity’s intellectual infrastructure for effective Faculty Development Programmes (FDP) through vigorous trainings and workshops.”

Chancellor Anwar also announced that to enhance the quality of research and develop research friendly environment at the campus, an Office of the Research, Innovation and Commercialisation (ORIC) had been formed for generating new ideas for enriching the knowledge for achieving sustainable development in the academic arena.

The SSUET Vice Chancellor, Prof Dr Syed Jawaid Hasan Rizvi, while presenting a detailed report on the institute’s performance said it had begun with just 200 students but now had the strength of more than 6,000 students in 10 technologies. He said the library has more than 100,000 books and subscribed to research and reference journals on regular basis.

He said the faculty comprised 386 highly qualified and skilled members. The varsity also offered monetary help on merit basis to deserving students in terms of scholarship and financial aid and Rs40 million had been allocated for this very purpose in the current fiscal year.

Earlier, in his welcome address the SSUET registrar, Syed Sarfraz Ali, said higher education had now become a tool of economic growth. The Board of Governor members, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, Lt. Gen. (R) Moinuddin Haider, Professor M. D. Shami, Justice Sadiq Bhatti, Sardar Yasin Malik, Cmdr (R) Salim Siddiqui also attended the event.