HARIPUR: Provincial higher education minister Kamran Khan Bangash on Saturday said the government was making all-out efforts for the development of universities to meet learning and other challenges.

He was speaking during the first convocation of the University of Haripur here on Saturday.

The university gave away degrees to 170 graduates of master’s and MPhil programmes and gold medals to 48 top exam position holders since its operation in 2012.

The minister said the government had taken several initiatives to ensure the degrees awarded by the universities were respected and their graduates became job providers instead of job seekers.

He lauded the performance of the UoH and said all administrative, academic and economic indicators of the university were quite encouraging.

“The way this university progressed in a short span of time indicates the efforts of VC and faculty members,” he said.

The minister said the department would help the varsity with its expansion plan.

Federal minister and MNA from Haripur Omar Ayub Khan, who was also in attendance, said the federal government had established a special technology zone authority.

He said with the cooperation of the provincial government, two licences were issued to special IT zone and Pak-Austria Institute of Science and Technology, Mang.

Earlier, UoH VC Prof Anwar Gilani said during the last three years, the number of university students had increased from 3,200 to 6,500, that of PhD scholars from 19 to 350, that of departments from 19 to 31 and that of programmes from 52 to 90.

He said the UoH was one of the six universities in the province that received the quality assurance award from the provincial government.

The VC said 15,000 students of UoH and affiliated colleges had graduated since 2012.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2022