President Dr Arif Alvi has called on the Pakistani universities to produce more graduates, saying that by the year 2030, 80 million graduates will be needed.
"Sixty-four per cent of our population is under the age of thirty. The world is changing. People who are educated today are among those who will mark their presence in the world,” he said while addressing the convocation of Iqra University in Karachi on Monday.
“Knowledge is not necessary being imparted in the classrooms but is now available in the cloud for all professions,” the president said, citing the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing as a factor that can significantly boost the number of graduates.
He lauded Iqra University as an outstanding and pioneering educational institution for its approach to blended learning. He congratulated the graduating students and their parents on investing in education.
He stated that the world was moving fast, and policy decision-makers needed to catch up and not think and plan in a linear progression.
“I was educated as a dentist in a bricks-and-mortar institution, but 80 per cent of dentistry knowledge has virtual possibilities. Iqra University, with this virtual approach, you can increase your numbers. Our country needs to increase its number of graduates. We need millions of graduates. I appreciate what you are doing.”
Dr Wasim Qazi, the vice-chancellor of Iqra University, started the convocation with an engaging welcome address, reminding the audience about some of the achievements Iqra University had made.
“This year, we mark the 21st anniversary of Iqra. Now that makes us relatively young compared to Oxford, Harvard, or the Muslim world’s older universities, such as Al-Azhar. But consider all that we have achieved in that short time. None is greater than the fact that today we have graduated more than 31,000 students. What’s more, we have graduated more than 13,000 women. Let that sink in. We have educated 30,000 leaders. Transformed 30,000 lives,” Dr Qazi said.
In the past two decades, Iqra University has achieved significant milestones. It has been ranked the number one business university in Pakistan by the Higher Education Commission. It has also been included in the QS and Times Higher Education ranking of global universities.
“According to the international and independent rankings agency, QS, we ranked in the top 250 universities in Asia in terms of academic reputation, employer reputation, student-teacher ratio, studio-PhD ration and PhD citation ratio.
“Furthermore, after the pandemic, we were the first university to invest millions of dollars in acquiring a seamless learning management system, Blackboard,” said Dr Qazi. The vice-chancellor also highlighted Iqra’s co-curricular and sports activities, citing the university achievement in winning over 364 medals, of which 227 were by female students.
In addition to the president of Pakistan, the consul general of Iran, the ambassador of Azerbaijan, the honorary consul general of Finland, Iqra’s founding chancellor and current chairman, Hunaid Lakhani, and its chancellor and co-founder, Erum Lakhani, also attended the convocation.