31 July 2004	Saturday	13 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

LAHORE, July 30: Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool approved here on Friday the curricula of microbiology and molecular genetics, mycology and plant pathology, botany and zoology.

Chairing a meeting of the Inter-University Faculty Board at the Governor's House, he said the revised curricula should be circulated among universities, colleges and institutions for adoption.

Earlier, PU's mycology and plant pathology department chairperson Prof Dr Rukhsana Bajwa presented the revised curricula of the MPP and the MMG. Giving details about the MPP curricula, she said the PU's department was currently offering three-year BSc (Honours), two-year MSc (Honours) and two to three-year PhD regular programmes.

Prof Bajwa said the syllabus of three-year BSc (Honours) programme, which started only two years ago, was designed on modern lines after thorough examination by national and international universities.

While the syllabi of MSc (Honours) and PhD were designed to offer specialized courses involving both basic and applied fields of mycology. She said research projects were evolved keeping in view the national economy, growth and conservation of natural resources, and the international standards.

Prof Bajwa said the courses were designed to provide the best learning opportunities to the prospective mycologists and plant pathologists to ensure crop protection, plant health care and agriculture-based industrial development.

She said the global environment was changing and excessive use of agro-chemicals had greatly enhanced the multifarious disease problems in crops and tree species. In this context, she said, lack of expertise in the field of pathology at the national level highly desired the production of skilled manpower to fight diseases.

Presenting the revised MMG curriculum, she said the department was established in March 2002 to teach traditional and advance concepts, and perform basic and applied research in the field. It also aimed at providing trained manpower to educational, research and industrial organizations.

She said the department was offering four-year BSc (Honours), two-year MSc and PhD based on new scheme (regular) and traditional and old scheme (informal). She explained the course contents, duration, objectives, teaching methodologies, learning and evaluation methods.

Botany department's Prof Dr Shahida Hasnain and Prof Dr Muhammad Saeed Akhtar presented curricula of botany and zoology, respectively. Earlier, Prof Dr S Riazuddin from the PU's National Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology presented a welcome address.

LCWU: The Lahore College for Women University has announced the launching of Gender Development Studies programme at graduation and postgraduation levels from September this year and January next year, respectively.

Speaking at a LCWU faculty meeting on Friday, vice-chancellor Prof Dr Bushra Mateen said the Gender Development Studies would be a multi-disciplinary department having teachers of psychology, social work, English and Urdu literature.

At BA level, she said, the gender studies would be offered as an elective subject. She said the aim of this new course was to train and empower women to attain gender equality and prepare them for a positive contribution to reformation of society. She also said the LCWU had always met the emerging requirements of society by launching courses of urgent needs.