Minister asks varsities to produce quality graduates

LAHORE : Punjab Minister for Higher Education Raja Yasir Humayun Sarfraz has called upon the professors of the higher education institutions to focus on production of quality graduates and the education the latter get must be reflected in their personality.

He was addressing the 6th international conference on “Baking, Insurance & Business Management”. PU Vice-Chancellor Prof Niaz Ahmad Akhtar, VC University of Okara Prof Dr Zakria Zakar, VC University of Jhang Prof Dr Shahid Munir, Dean Faculty of Commerce Prof Dr Zulfiqar Ahmad Bora, Principal HCBF Prof Dr Mubasher Munawar Khan, researchers, faculty members and a large number research scholars were present on the occasion. Addressing the conference, Raja Yasir Humayun said that the government was now focusing on the quality of higher education after putting it on the right track. He said that graduates must be enabled to compete at international level. He said that efforts were also being made to strengthen industry-academia linkages. He expressed the hope that the conference would resolve the issues being faced by the business community. He said that he was happy over the achievements in the higher education sector in the last three years. Prof Niaz Ahmad urged the students to work on new ideas and initiatives that could make their organisations profitable and contribute to the development of the country. He urged them to provide the best services to their customers in the banking sector. Dr Zakria Zakar said that the whole world had learnt from COVID-19 and new technologies and modern ways of businesses had been adopted. He said that the volume of online businesses had increased manifold thus new opportunities had been created in various business disciplines. He urged upon the scholars to address the risk factor in business management.

In his keynote address, University of Jhang, Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Shahid Munir and other speakers stressed upon the need of research based decision making for future planning. They highlighted rapid changes in human behaviour, investment decisions, capacity building, knowledge sharing, virtual business, services and development of alternate action plans owing to the pandemic. Research in these areas will be of utility to all the stakeholders and policy makers, they added.

Dr Mubasher said there was a lack of research in insurance, business and risk management disciplines. However, he said, the college administration promoted research culture and 200 research papers had been published in HEC recognised journals. He said that around 150 research papers would be presented in 30 sessions of the conference. He said that the college had introduced the tradition of organising international conferences in the relevant fields for the first time. He said that it was the high time to make an analytical study of the threats posed by the pandemic so that strategies to overcome these threats could be developed. He said that strategies suggested by researchers in their papers may lead to evolution of new dimensions of business and risk management. Dr Zulfiqar Ahmad Bora lauded the services of Dr Mubasher Munawar Khan as dean and said that during his deanship, new degree programmes had been initiated in the faculty of commerce due to his encouragement.