ISLAMABAD, July 3: The construction work under a project to set up a world-class engineering university at Sialkot will start by the end of the current year, and the varsity will be able to take students by the end of 2008, said an announcement.

A two-member Swedish delegation visited the Higher Education Commission (HEC) here on Monday to finalise the plan for establishment of University of Engineering Science and Technology (UEST) at Sialkot in collaboration with Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology.

The delegation, comprising Dr Ramon Wyss, vice president, Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology, and Ake C Rasmuson, professor of chemical engineering and technology, royal institute, met HEC Chairman Prof Attaur Rahman, and later gave a presentation to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Mohammad Akram Sheikh.

The PC-I draft of the varsity was appreciated by the Planning Commission. During the presentation, some suggestions were also made for further improvement of the project as it would help develop industrial linkages between both the countries.

The university will be one of the six new engineering varsities to be established in different cities of Pakistan in collaboration with technologically-advanced countries as announced by the government. The HEC has been assigned to oversee the establishment of these universities.

The government through HEC will finance and build the campus, while the Royal Institute of Technology will be responsible for technical and human support like course content, university management, human resource development and quality control. The campus and laboratories will be built according to the Swedish institute’s specifications. It is pertinent to mention here that land has been acquired for the university in Sialkot.

It is hoped that this university will enrol 100 PhD students per year, and the academic programmes of the university would be extendible. Through this process, the yearly intake of the students will gradually increase to about 1,000 per year, at BS, Masters and PhD levels.