SWABI – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Governor, Barrister Masood Kausar said that they had limited resources and faced many challenges and the academia in universities should engage in meaningful and relevant researches which offer indigenous solutions to the problems facing them.
He was addressing the 16th convocation of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology here on Tuesday. The governor was the chief guest on the occasion and he awarded gold medals and conferred degrees on 248 BS, 21 MS and seven PhD graduates. The governor said the nation expected from institutions of higher education not merely traditional teaching, learning, and research programmes but they must be engaged in gathering, discovering, constructing, generating, and disseminating knowledge. The universities are places of wisdom.
“The acquisition of mere information is not enough and it is the basic function of the universities to turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom,” he said education must create a sense of unity and share destiny of all mankind. “If the educational institutions of the world failed to realise this, they would not be able to rid them of chaos, violence, and war,” he said.
The governor recalled that a poet philosopher said that the world would remain a hunting ground for ferocious beasts unless the educators of the world get their heads together and teach and impart to the younger generation shared values of mankind.        
Another function of universities is to create leadership, he said, adding that this was the most urgent in a country like Pakistan where they need man and women of high caliber equipped with the highest professional ability and imbued with the deepest moral sense. It is not a tall order.
“I assure you it is achievable and you must achieve it. We have limited resources and are faced with many challenges. We must find the solution of confronting challenges. We live in a society where there is a lot of violence and intolerance. We must address the real causes of the problems and if we fail there might be more serious challenges.” Paying rich tributes to late president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, he said, “the founding father of this Institute which bears his name deserves our admiration and gratitude for giving this unique gift to the Pakistani nation.”
Engr Shamsul Mulk, president of Society for the Promotion of Engineering Sciences and Technology in Pakistan said, “it is my firm conviction that the future of Pakistan is in the hands of our youth and it is our duty to help them acquire skills, knowledge and character to act as harbingers of change in Pakistan.” Jehangir Bashar, Rector of the Institute in the contemporary world the corpus of knowledge is expanding at a mind boggling pace and many new ideas and concepts are emerging and must be adopted, and sometimes adapted. “This requires constant review of the curricula and courses of studies and research to make them compatible with international standards,” he said.
He said there are more than 25 student societies including GIK chapters of a number of national and international academic societies. All these are run by the students themselves under the guidance of faculty advisors.
Earlier Prof Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid, Pro-Rector (academic) spoke about linkages with national and international universities, research programmes and projects, role of the academia, linkage between academia and industry and co-curricular activities. He said that the Higher Education Commission is placed the GIK Institute 3rd at national and first in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province among all the engineering universities.
Quaid-e-Azam medal was awarded Hassan Aftab Kapasi and Ghulam Ishaq Khan medal to Amaid Ali. Those who got the faculty based gold medals were Muneeb Ali, Muhammad Haris Mughees, Amaid Ali, Zain-ul-Hassan, Owais Manzoor Malik and Mohammad Saad Khalid.