KHWAJA Amjad Saeed is no more. With his demise has ended an era of selfless service to the field of education in Pakistan.

Beginning his career while studying at The Hailey College of Commerce Lahore, Khwaja Sahib was serving the same institution till he breathed his last. Getting and imparting education and commercial training was in his blood.

He was an M.Com, ACMA, MBA, FCA and Ph.D himself and became the first head of the Institute of Business Administration, Punjab University, at a very young age; the IBA Punjab was the second business school of Pakistan after the IBA Karachi. I joined the IBA Punjab as its first batch of graduates.

It was an era when the state still accepted its responsibility to give the right to education to the common man at its own expense. Khwaja Amjad Saeed was an embodiment of this spirit.

He would roam about the city on his trademark Vespa scooter and leave no stone unturned in order to acquire the services of outstanding teachers in commerce and of practising businessmen for his IBA Punjab.

During the period of our first batch we held a seminar which was presided over by Syed Babar Ali and late Razzak Dawood, Khalid Mirza and Masood Hasan joined the visiting faculty of the IBA Punjab.

Rising to the position of vice chancellor of Punjab University Khwaja Sahib was in the boards of the ICMA, ACAAP, HEC and number of academic bodies.

He has to his credit a massive count of published works on various fields of national and international business law and trade practices.

Lately he was considered a leading world authority on Islamic finance and had the patronage of the Malaysia government enabling him to lecture on Islamic finance worldwide.

Khwaja Sahib did want fame but out of his academics.

Today the ruling elite has provided room to the private sector in education which unregulated by the state are free to charge exorbitant fees. On the other hand half of the country’s under privileged population is excluded from those who want to study.

The bridge between the haves and the have-nots in education is widening. Khwaja Amjad Saeed was the last candle of hope for the public sector education which has been extinguished by an act of fate.

However the candle lit by him will remain in the hearts and minds of his innumerable students who will keep him in high esteem always.

I am confident that all of us his students will play our role in the rehabilitation of the public education system to the common man. There is no better way for us to remember our teacher Khwaja Amjad Saeed.