HYDERABAD: A total of 897 students received their degrees at the at the 27th convocation of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) at the university’s campus in Jamshoro on Thursday.

Female students outdid their male counterparts in securing gold medals. Ms Rehmat Rehman of electrical engineering received two gold and one silver medals for top faculty student, best graduate and first position and Dua Gul of mathematics was awarded a gold medal for top faculty student and silver for first position in the department.

Among the boys, Shahzad of civil engineering and Mohammad Faizan Ahmed of mechatronics engineering received gold medal for faculty top student and silver medal for first position in the department, respectively.

Of the total, 819 were bachelors, 62 M.Phil and 16 Ph.D scholars.

The Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed said at the program that scholars should concentrate on the kind of research that is beneficial to people and society as the progress that does not benefit people is meaningless.

He said at the 27th convocation of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) on Thursday that in fact the process of learning started in real terms after the award of degree and it should continue throughout life, according to a press release.

He said that students should adopt positive attitude to life and pointed out that mobile phone was being badly misused in this country.

He said that nations progressed on the basis of science and technology and urged students to find out reasons that kept Muslims backward in development even after having proved their mettle in the fields of mathematics, medicine and science.

He urged students to look into the causes behind Muslims’ failures and said Muslims should also ponder over issues like Gaza crisis and Kashmir problem. “We should find out why Muslims are suffering,” he said.

He believed that it was in fact disinterestedness in education that “we are facing these issues”. Israel was a smaller country and likewise Hungary but most Nobel prize winners were from the two countries while the only Nobel prize winner Pakistan could boast of was Dr Abdul Salam.

He stated that Pakistani political leadership kept requesting the world to extend debt repayment date and regretted that Pakistanis could not become a nation even after 76 years because the enemies had divided Pakistani people. Allama Iqbal had likened Muslim youth to falcon which bore with all difficult phases in life with courage and resilience, he said.

He said the HEC had given several projects to the MUET and announced Rs250m grant for the university to install a solar energy project. Youths should accept challenges and strive hard for the achievement of their goals, he said.

He said that people did not have time to train youths, it was time to connect people. They should accept diversity and respect each other, he said.

Sindh HEC chairman Dr S.M. Tariq Rafi congratulated students and said that they were able to get their degrees because of their parents and teachers’ sacrifices.

The MUET’s VC, Prof Dr Tauha Hassan Ali, said the university was collaborating with the United States educational institutions and experts to address climate change and water issues.

He said the varsity had offered its services to Sindh government and World Bank after recent floods. The MUET had suggested construction of small dams to avert the threat of the flood calamity, he said.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2024