KARACHI: “It is the dream of many youth to get admission to the University of Karachi and then to graduate from there because they know that a bright future awaits them outside,” said Governor of Sindh Imran Ismail, who is also the university chancellor, during KU’s 29th annual convocation, which saw 1,594 students passing out with their degrees as another 3,823 were conferred their degrees in absentia at the university’s Valika Ground here on Saturday.

“But what will you do if life doesn’t go according to plan?” He asked the graduating students while congratulating them on reaching a major milestone of their lives.

Then quoting the example of a friend of his, Engineer Mohammad Najeeb Haroon, he said that he also had passed out of the university of his choice, NED University, with dreams. But he couldn’t land a proper job even after getting more degrees from the US. “Today he owns the largest construction company here,” he said.

“So don’t give up hope ever. Keep the faith and believe in yourself. You must have vision. Don’t have small goals and targets such as getting a job, getting married and having children. That is not having a vision because they are quite normal things. Dream big and aim high,” he said.

“Also remember that your state has spent a lot on your education. So do well in life and return your country the favour it did you by working for your country,” he said.

Earlier, VC Prof Dr Mohammad Ajmal Khan had mentioned the need of a hospital at the university, for which he said that they had been promised a package of Rs9 billion by the former prime minister. But the governor, while promising that the hospital will become a reality someday, also said that the present government had other priorities. “The country is currently in financial crisis and the prime minister is trying to get Pakistan out of the financial crunch. So the hospital will be built with public-private partnership,” he said.

“Meanwhile, we can look into increasing the university funding to help cover the deficit,” he said while congratulating the proud parents and teachers.

In all 5,412 students completed their studies in various disciplines as 33 MPhil and 123 PhD degrees were also conferred along with two MS degrees and one MD degree.

As per the details, 284 students received MSc, 269 received BSc(H), 220 received MA, 174 received BA(H), 135 PharmD, 127 BS, 38 MCom, 30 MPA, 27 MBA, 26 MCS, 24 BPA(H), 16 LLB, 12 MHRM, 11 BEd, eight BE, seven BS(CS) and MPP, six BS(SE), five BBA(H), four MLIS, three BLIS, one each of MA(E&F) and MAS degrees. These included 177 gold medals and nine overall first position holders in nine university faculties.

Earlier, in his address the vice chancellor said that they were organising the convocation after a gap of only 11 months since the previous convocation was held also in 2018, on January 27. “This indicates that we are able to clear the backlog in results and that we are awarding the degrees in the same year in which the students graduated,” he said.

He said that KU was the largest university of Pakistan and also ranked among the top universities of the country in which teaching and research activities were conducted under nine faculties — arts and social sciences, Islamic studies, management and administrative sciences, pharmacy, education, law, engineering and medicine — and 54 teaching departments, 21 research institutes, numerous centres and chairs, all of which were badly in need of funds.

“We are continuously upgrading our curricula to stay abreast with knowledge and societal needs and challenges,” he said.

Speaking about the significance of the research being carried out at KU, he added that they published some 2,000 research papers this year. “We have the potential to even publish 200,000 research papers if we had enough funds,” he said.

“The government needs to support science culture in Pakistan. The university has the human capital and infrastructure to achieve this. But we need funding,” he added.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2018