BAHAWALPUR, Jan 9: Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool said on Tuesday the Islamia University Bahawalpur administration was making all possible efforts to earn the Pakistan Engineering Council accreditation for its college.

He assured the students that the college was close to the PEC affiliation. The governor was addressing the students who gathered in the lawns of the IUB’s central library during his visit to various departments on the Baghdadul Jadid campus on the second consecutive day.

He asked the vice-chancellor to increase the number of talent scholarships for the students and simplify its procedure for expeditious payments. He said all universities in the province had been purged of politics.

The governor (who is also the chancellor) listened to the problems facing the students and exhorted them to avail themselves of the opportunity to progress in the world of rapid development. He urged the students to improve their communication skills which was vital to get employment opportunities in the private sector.

“Although the public-sector jobs are shrinking by the day,

the emerging private companies and banks are full of openings.”

Mr Maqbool expressed satisfaction over the pace of development on the academic front as well as over infrastructure improvement. In response to the students’ demands, he told them that in future a uniform admission policy in all public-sector universities would be followed to save their time.

Fulfilling the demand of the students of Seerat chair department of Islamic studies, he announced fee concession for the students coming from seminaries to acquire higher education. He also held out an assurance that the degrees of the outgoing university students of MA (Hadith) or such subjects would be treated equivalent to other postgraduate degrees and such students would be eligible for posts in government departments.

He said he would direct all public-sector universities to introduce such programmes to facilitate the seminary students.

In the Khwaja Farid chair section of Seraiki department, the governor stressed the need to preserve local culture, civilisation and monuments. Seraiki department chairman Dr Nasrullah Khan Nasir showed him rare books, manuscripts and literature on the Seraiki language.

Later, he inaugurated a radio station of the mass communication department.

During his visit to the Quaid-i-Azam Medical College earlier in the day, the governor told the audience that the facility of heart surgery would be added to the Bahawal Victoria Hospital as would be angiography’s.

He also inaugurated a computer laboratory set up in coordination with the University of Health Sciences.

QMC principal (Prof Dr) Syed Ali Ajwad Shah informed the guest that the 30 computers installed in the laboratory had the facility of Internet to enable the teachers and the taught to have an access to 17 medical magazines and journals to keep themselves abreast with the latest research in the field.