LAHORE, Dec 17: Governor Sardar Latif Khan Khosa says universities should share their facilities and expertise with each other to take the standard of research and education to the international level.

Speaking at the fourth convocation of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences on its city campus on Monday, the governor said every nation in the world was now required to promote education to deal with the gigantic challenges of this modern era. He stressed that students must acquire education to improve their knowledge to meet the modern-day needs and play a vital role in nation-building and development.

The governor lauded the UVAS for producing qualified graduates to boost livestock and allied industry and expanding the horizon of its educational system by making linkages with other national and international universities, private sector and industry.

Talking to the media later, the governor said that education was now a provincial subject after passage of the 18th Amendment and stressed that the Punjab government should allocate more funds for education.

Answering a question, the governor said elections would be held on time in a transparent manner and added that delimitation of constituencies was Election Commission’s job, not Supreme Court’s.

He said inflation rate was 25 per cent when the PPP took over the command of the country and now the inflation rate had been brought down to single digit. He stressed that graduates should look for becoming entrepreneurs instead of looking for jobs.

With the fast increasing number of graduates, he said, it would be impossible for any government to provide jobs to everyone.

He claimed that there was surplus wheat and rice in Pakistan.

Earlier, UVAS Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Talat Naseer Pasha said the university was imparting quality education, conducting research and sharing its innovative projects, research and skills with the allied industry, professionals, farming community and the society.

The VC said the value of ongoing competitive research projects of the university was more than Rs350 million. He said the university had enhanced the number of need-based scholarship from 94 in 2011 to 308 this year. He said the value of these scholarships increased from Rs2.2 million to Rs14.5 million with the support of the allied industry, alumni, Akhuwat Foundation and the HEC.

As many as 1,072 graduates, including Ph.D and M.Phil scholars, received their degrees and medals at the convocation.