10 July 2004	Saturday	21 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

LAHORE, July 9: Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool has said the government is working on a plan to launch an internal evaluation system in all public and private sector universities to determine their ranking.

Talking to reporters after the convocation of the University of Central Punjab at the Aiwan-i-Iqbal on Friday, the governor said the public and private sector chartered universities would be required to internally assess their performance and publish a report annually.

He said the chartered universities were trying to make their curricula uniform. He said the University of Central Punjab had been entrusted the task to revise the IT curricula, and it had given one presentation and was improving curricula to meet modern-day requirements.

The governor said he had called a meeting of private universities this month for a presentation on the revision of IT and management curricula. Answering a question, he said an environment of competition had been created among public and private sector universities and all of them were making efforts to show the best results. No university was at a disadvantage in this regard, he said.

With the opening of new banks and promotion of textile and designing industry, he said the graduates were getting better job opportunities. The job market would further expand with the promotion and growth of industry and economy, he added.

He, however, did not respond to a question about any possibility of change of the Punjab governor. Earlier, the governor stressed during the convocation address that private sector universities should also work to offer market-based engineering courses, besides creating their leading role in different sectors, including economy, service, textile, media, art and culture, construction and banking.

He said the industrial leaders were happy with the graduates of the private sector universities, which had justified the trust reposed in them by the government. He said the newly emerging e-government and e-governance would also create more jobs in the public sector.

Regarding the issue of recognition, he said the private universities' examination system should be made external and these should collaborate with other public and private sector universities at home and abroad.

Welcoming the entry of private sector in higher education, he said the government alone was unable to provide higher education facilities to almost 2.9 per cent students.

After focusing on elementary and primary education, he said the government was now giving equal priority to higher education and offering scholarships at postgraduate, M Phil and PhD levels.

The governor said the public sector universities had updated their curricula and were linking up with the industries and institutions abroad to keep themselves abreast with changing times. Only a knowledge-based economy could help Pakistan to develop a dominating role at the international level, he said.

Stressing that the private universities should develop linkages with the local industry, he said the government was also considering the plan to grant charters to the satellite campuses of private chartered universities in other cities.

Mr Maqbool also urged the students to inform the world that they were part of Islamic, liberal and courteous society. University of Central Punjab board of governors chairman Mian Amer also spoke on the occasion.