LAHORE: A three-day international conference on ‘Modern and Contemporary Language, Literature and Culture 2014 (FICLL‘14)’ began on Monday at the Government College University (GCU) under the auspices of British Council and Higher Education Commission.

British Council Director Richard Weyers chaired the opening ceremony while Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan was the chief guest.

According to a press release, Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Khaleequr Rahman said more than 21 foreign delegates, including five from India, were participating in the conference that spread over 27 technical sessions. He said it was the first such conference in 131-year history of GCU’s English Department.

FICLL’14 Secretary Dr Sajjad Ali Khan said 20th century intelligentsia had signalled a shift in philosophical, cultural, social, political and literary sensibility.

“This shift became highly discomfiting and created divergent issues as individualism, ontological abstraction, social and cultural disintegration,” he added. He hoped the recommendations of the conference would help in social and cultural reintegration of human beings at the global level.

Rana Mashhood said these conferences provided a platform to academicians from various backgrounds to interact and exchange ideas, and such an interaction could lead to fruitful long-term collaborations. He also termed the conference an opportunity for young scholars of GCU’s English Department to interact with well-known writers and academicians and learn from their knowledge and experiences.

Richard Weyers said the British Council was soon going to reopen its library, which would be a state-of-the-art 21st century library with all kinds of modern facilities for research. He said they were promoting English language at school level especially in Punjab.

Eminent Indian academician Dr Uttam Baburao Parekar, head of the English department at Yeshwant Mahavidyalaya, Wardha, India said the conference provided an opportunity to foster friendly ties between literati and academia of Pakistan and India.

“We, in India, have a very wrong perception about Pakistan. Even my family was stopping me from visiting Pakistan due to terrorism and hatred about Indians. But I am astonished that the situation is vice versa here,” Dr Uttam said.

Riti Sharma, a post-graduation student from the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India said both countries should stop inducing in their young generations hatred against each other.

UHS: In a bid to develop a culture which recognises the importance of quality in higher education, a ‘Quality Assurance Awareness Week’ kicked off at the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Monday.

During this week, activities such as banner display, presentations and seminars will be carried out to educate varsity’s students, staff and faculty about how to develop a policy and associated procedures for the assurance of quality and standards of their programmes. UHS Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) is organising the week.

UHS Director QEC Dr Arif Rashid Khwaja said the Quality Assurance Agency of Higher Education Commission was very keen on ensuring quality higher education in Pakistani institutions.

He said quality enhancement cells conducted surveys to evaluate programmes, courses and teachers which resulted in improving the quality of these programmes. They also played an important role in the ranking of universities, he added.