17 April 2005	Sunday	07 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

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ISLAMABAD, April 16: Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Queen Mary College, University of London, for active collaboration between the two institutions.

The MoU signing ceremony was attended among others by CIIT Rector Dr S.M. Junaid Zaidi and QMC Principal Dr Adrian Smith.

Under the MoU, the two institutions will collaborate in postgraduate academic programmes, faculty development and research initiatives in several areas of mutual interest including material sciences, bio-materials, fuel cell technology and global finance.

The faculties of the two institutions will have opportunities to exchange visits for collaborative research in areas of mutual interest.

The Queen Mary College, established in 1887, is one of the most prestigious institutions of Britain with highly reputed research and academic programmes.

The CIIT already has signed agreements with the Chinese universities like Harbin Institute of Information Technology, Graduate Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc.

It also has signed an MoU with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy, for training and research in Italian laboratories and participation in ICTP’s activities. Similarly, the CIIT has signed an MoU with the University of Bologna, the world’s oldest university.

RELAXATION: Meanwhile, the CIIT has decided to give no more relaxation to the students, who fail to get less than the mandatory two Graduate Point Average (GPA).

Talking to Dawn, the CIIT registrar, Dr Arshad Malik, said: “The institute was granted charter in August 2000, and has now evolved into one of the best institutions in the IT sector.”

“Initially, when the institute was set up, its admission criterion was quite relaxed. Similarly, the students of beginning semesters were given relaxation in terms of GPA and were kept on probation for some time.

“Earlier, our immediate task was to establish the institution for which we needed students. Now that we have over 6,000 students at various campuses, we have decided to tighten our rules and regulations to make it one of the best educational institutions in the country,” Dr Arshad Malik said.

The CIIT had recently declared 60 students of various semesters discontinued (DI) for failing to secure two GPA, equal to 60 per cent marks, which is mandatory for promotion into the next semester.

According to the aggrieved students, this is for the first time that the institute has taken this step.

Earlier, they said, the CIIT even allowed the students to get the required GPA till their last semester. But now the students, who were promoted to the 5th, 6th and 7th semesters, were asked to restart their studies, as they had not been able to maintain two GPA.

Some students have moved court, while others have taken to the streets to protest against the decision.

In response to a question, Mr Malik admitted that during the initial years the students getting less than the required GPA were moved to next semesters. “Yes, the students were given this relaxation, but that was conditional and they were asked to improve their GPA afterwards,” Mr Malik claimed.

When asked as to why the students were promoted to the next semesters without getting the required GPA, he said: “It’s time that we took some tough decisions, and we’re doing just that. The institution can’t carry on with such slackness and it has to be stopped.”

When asked if it would not be like doing an injustice to the affected students, he said the institute had taken this decision to lend some credibility to its degree.