Students awarded PhD, MPhil degrees, medals at PU convocation

LAHORE : Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar has said there will be zero political interference in appointment of vice-chancellors (VCs) and deans at universities because the government believes in merit and transparency.

While addressing Punjab University’s second phase of 126th convocation here on Saturday, he said the government would extend full support to the universities for improving their international ranking.

Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) Chairman Prof Dr Muhammad Nizamud-din, PU Vice-Chancellor Prof Niaz Ahmad, Acting Controller of Examinations Rauf Nawaz, Registrar Dr Muhammad Khalid Khan, Additional Controller Raja Shahid Javed, syndicate and senate’s members, deans of various faculties, professors and a large number of MPhil/PhD scholars and their parents were present on the occasion.

The governor said the principles of merit, transparency and accountability must be followed for improving international ranking of the universities. He said Prime Minister Imran Khan and his team considered youth as the most valuable asset of Pakistan. He said equipping youth with education was the top most priority of the government. He said we must follow the teachings of Allama Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam for progress and prosperity of our country.

The governor said the development of nations was linked with education. He said the nations who spent their energies on education found respect and were ruling the world. He said the power, wealth and designations which could not serve humanity were useless.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Niaz said PU administration was making efforts to bring PU among top 400 universities in the world. He said the government had organised meetings of all statutory bodies and senate’s meeting was held after 11 years for smooth functioning of university affairs. He said in five months, the university had promoted faculty members who were awaiting their promotions for many years and new appointments had been made following 100 per cent merit. He said PU administration was also focusing on training of teachers and staff and curriculum was being designed on modern lines. The administration had appointed heads of departments on seniority basis and for the first time, one man one post policy was being implemented, he said.

The VC said, “PU has recently improved ranking in Asian universities 39 times and now it is amongst top 200 Asian universities for the first time. Next year PU’s ranking will improve further.”

Congratulating the passed out students, he advised them to keep themselves up-to-date in their respective fields. He said the previous government had taken 313 kanals of PU land for construction of road but no money was given to the university in compensation.

He said if government provided money or alternative land in compensation, PU would have built a state-of-the-art medical college and a teaching hospital.

In convocation, 103 PhD and 1,051 MPhil degrees were distributed among students while 25 medals and seven cash prizes were also distributed among students.