KARACHI, May 16: As many as 81 graduates, including those of the third MBBS batch, were awarded degrees at the second convocation of the Ziauddin Medical University here on Friday.

The chairman, Higher Education Commission, Prof Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, was the chief guest, who, alongwith the chancellor of the university, Dr Asim Hussain, handed over degrees to 57 MBBS, 8 Masters (Physical Therapy) and 16 Bachelors in Medical Technology graduates.

The university’s Honour award was given to Dr Sofia Naz Ummed for her over all best academic performance among the passing out graduates. Ms Naz received the award from the chief guest amidst applause.

Felicitating the graduates, Dr Atta advised them to stand up for the basic principles of life and to continue to serve humanity sincerely. “This is the beginning of your long illustrious career to the service of nation and once you utilize your potentials and work in a group, you can be an island of excellence,” he said.

Referring to the overall slackness of the underdeveloped countries, and particularly to that of the Muslim countries, Dr Atta blamed respective governments for ignorance and improper vision. “Challenges can be over come only when we learn to utilize our natural and human resources in a compatible way,” he added.

He observed that the present government was keen to develop skilled human resources and that was why the country had seen a remarkable increase in its monetary allocations for science, technology and higher education. The grants of public sector universities were also being enhanced many fold, while practical measures were being taken for strengthening the quality of the available faculty members by providing them modern facilities, including fibre optic linkage, he noted and hoped that these measures would surely contribute to the meaningful development of human resources in the country.

He said that in order to promote the distant learning culture and serve the population in remote areas, the government had decided to start four educational television channels under its Virtual University programme. Licences had already been granted to two educational channels, which were likely to start transmission by the end of this year, he informed the audience.

On this occasion, he referred to the abundance of plants and herbs in the country and urged the scientists and doctors, both from public and private sectors, to utilize those resource for medicinal purposes.

He said that the government was also starting tele-medicine programme to provide instant and cheaper medical help to the population in remote areas through video conferences and linking them to hospitals and universities in the district headquarters and major cities of the country.

Earlier, the chancellor, Dr Asim Hussain, said that it was no secret that health care was now out of reach of the lower and middle class. The Ziauddin University was aware of its social responsibilities and had started a population based primary health care programme for 20,000 people in its adjacent katchi abadis, including Sikandarabad, with active community participation, he added.

Talking about the improvement required in the standard of medical education in Pakistan, Dr Asim said that the concept of examination based learning must be replaced by the most modern methods, structured on practical training programme, while the assessment methodology must be left to the universities to design and develop.

He further observed that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council must define standards of competency skills and all students at the undergraduate level must undergo some kind of objective evaluation or must appear in an examination held by the council, before starting practice.

He hoped that with the efforts of the HEC chairman more incentives would be given to the private sector universities and hospitals, particularly in terms of income tax relief, cheaper electricity, import of scientific equipment and waiver of property tax.

The vice-chancellor of the university, prof N A Jaffery, said that while living within the regulations of the PMDC, ZMU was having a community based, partly integrated curriculum, using problem based learning as a major instructional strategy. The university was doing its most to establish the tradition of research as it believed that universities were known for their research and not just for academic programmes, he added.