KARACHI, April 24: Politecnico di Torino, the first technical university in Italy, in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan will establish an engineering university in Karachi.

A delegation from Italy, comprising vice-rectors Prof B. Chiaia, Prof R. Borchiellini and the head of international relation office, Dr E. Armando, is on a visit to Islamabad and Karachi. In this connection, the delegates met HEC Chairman Prof Atta-ur-Rehman, HEC Adviser Prof Haroon Ahmed, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Dr Akram Sheikh.

According to the release issued by the Italian consulate on Tuesday, the project deals with the establishment of an international campus of Politecnico di Torino in the city’s vicinity where a French varsity and a South Korean varsity will also be set up. Five Italian universities with Politecnico in lead have formed a consortium to ensure availability of well-trained teaching staff at these varsities.

In the varsity premises, departments, labs, library, lecture rooms, students’ dormitories and faculty housing would be ready by the end of 2009. Under a students exchange programme, more than 100 Pakistani students would visit Italy, added the press release.

“A modern university must go beyond the traditional mission of education and research,” said Project Manager Prof Chiaia. He said, “Our vision for the Karachi campus embraces a strong focus on technology transfer and services to the territory.” Coordinated by the three universities, he said, a big technology park comprising privately-owned research centres and an incubator for the innovative high-tech companies would be hosted in the campus.

Prof Chiaia said quality education standard and research activity would be ensured at the campus and engineering degrees would be issued by Politecnico di Torino. He expressed hope that the improvement in engineering education standards in Pakistan would attract Italian companies to settle here and exploit quality workforce at a reasonable cost.

He said, “Italian government supports the initiative, as testified by the interest of the embassy in Islamabad and the consulate in Karachi. Efforts will be made to attract medium and large size Italian companies whose investments in Pakistan would be substantially improved,” he added.