193 graduates awarded degrees at UoP convocation 

PESHAWAR:  Around 193 graduates received degrees at the first convocation of the four year bachelor programme at the Convocation Hall of the University of Peshawar (UoP) on Saturday.

Vice-Chancellor, University of Peshawar, Dr Muhammad Asif Khan awarded degrees to the graduates of various disciplines.

Around 275 graduates had registered for the convocation while 193 graduates were present at the hall for receiving their degrees.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Muhammad Asif offered an apology on behalf of the university to students and their parents for arranging the convocation after a long delay.

He said most of the graduates who were receiving degrees today were either doing jobs or were pursuing higher studies.

“Today is a moment of pride not only for the graduates and their parents but for the faculty members of the university,” Dr Muhammad Asif added.

He lamented that detachment of professional disciplines from the University of Peshawar (UoP) had affected the university’s performance.

Dr Muhammad Asif said that within a couple of decades, UoP established itself into a great seat of learning.

“This university outshined other universities in Pakistan not in one or few disciplines, but as a comprehensive university,” he added.

Dr Muhammad Asif said the entire campus belonged to UoP in 1975 when he joined the institution after completing FSc.

It had few outstanding colleges, including Khyber Medical College, College of Engineering, College of Agriculture and the Law and Commerce colleges as its constituent colleges and some excellent programmes in humanities and social sciences, he added.

At that time, he said, other universities in the country did not have professional disciplines and they could not match UoP.

“But suddenly various programmes were detached from UoP and they started clipping our wings. First of all we lost professional disciplines and then even our constituent colleges,” he lamented.

He pointed out this detachment of professional programmes from UoP as one of the reasons of its declining performance.

He also blamed the loss of diversity in the teaching faculty, staff and students for the decline.

He said that until 1975 UoP was the only university in the entire northern Pakistan and therefore, it was an ultimate destiny for a large number of students from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The vice-chancellor also awarded 21 gold medals. Parents of the gold medalists accompanied their children to the stage and shook hands with vice-chancellor when their children were awarded the medals.

Twelve of the gold medalists were female graduates. The gold medalists included Sara Ali in the Bachelor of Information Technology, Sundus Amin of BS Statistics, Saba Shaukat of Environmental Sciences, Tahniyat Elahi of BS Commerce, Sabah Baqi of BS Physics, Hareera Zeb of BS Psychology (2009-13), Salma Gohar of Sociology, Shafaq Zufishan of BS Mathematics ( 2010-14), Shahana Ahmed of Biotechnology, Abida Khalil of Psychology (2010-14), Sana Arab of Microbiology, Afshan Mathematics (2009-13), Rana Khalid Zoology, Saifullah Geography, Itizaz Hussain Electronics (2009-13), Syed Badshah Sociology (201-14), Muhammad Umar Farooq Electronics (2010-14), Muhammad Adil Saleem Economics, Janbaz Ahmed of B.Ed, Muhammad Naeem Afridi Computer Science, and Hassan Jan Habib of BS Commerce.