ABBOTTABAD: The Comsats Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, which is currently ranked among the top 10 universities of Pakistan, had set a target to enter into the club of top 500 universities of the world, said Dr Syed Mohammad Junaid Zaidi, the institute’s rector, on Monday. He claimed that currently no Pakistani university was among top-ranked international universities.

He was addressing as chief guest at the 92nd and 93rd convocation of the institute, here. A total of 798 students were awarded degrees and medals in the two sessions of the convocation.

The rector said in 2015, 1,200 research papers were published by students of Comsats throughout its seven campuses, and this year a target of 1,600 research papers had been set. He said these research papers would be published in renowned world journals.

While giving word of advice to faculty members and students, Dr Zaidi said this was high time for youths and academia to utilise their energies to pay back to the nation. He thanked the ministries of science & technology, finance and donors for providing financial assistance to Comsats.

He also asked the parents not to side with culture of sifarish (nepotism) and let talented students excel in their respective fields on the basis of merit.

Earlier, director of the institute Gul Khan Jadoon said Abbottabad campus which was started in 2001 with meager strength of 121 students and 14 staff members had now crossed the mark of 600 students with 430 faculty members, out of which 200 were PhDs.

About 17 undergraduates and 24 graduate programmes were being run in the campus, he said, adding the institute was also working on adopt a student, adopt a family, and adopt a village, programme.

Ms Muneeba Mir, speaking on behalf of the graduating students amid thundering applause, paid rich tributes to faculty members who had made them as graduate with complete personality.

Later, degrees and medals were awarded to students by the chief guest.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2016