KARACHI: The Institute of Business Management (IoBM) conferred degrees on 1,100 graduates in business management and other disciplines at its 22nd convocation on Saturday.

IoBM chancellor Bashir Jan Mohammed congratulated parents on their efforts for providing the best education to their children and advised graduates to focus on honest living and working towards returning to society what they had learnt.

Talib S. Karim, president of IoBM, said the institute had adopted Moodle, an open-source learning system, which would enable it to gradually replace traditional teaching methodologies with technology-aided virtual learning, now seen as being a preferred alternative for teaching and learning in top-tier higher educational institutions around the world.

He shed light on IoBM’s outreach programme that provided financial assistance to deserving students from all over the country without any discrimination and said the IoBM Endowment Fund had been consistently providing financial assistance to nearly 25 per cent of its students every year, either on the basis of merit or need.

Shazad Dada, CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, who was keynote speaker at the ceremony, said that it was heartening to note that 12 female students had received gold medals out of the 14 recipients and emphasised the need for men and women to work for the progress of Pakistan.

He discussed four important things: having a sense of purpose, acceptance of benefits of failure, remaining positive and showing kindness and compassion.

He said that as a nation they had to create bright future for the young generation and advised students to work for the less-privileged and help them raise standard of their lives.

This year’s valedictorian Fatima Ziaur Rehman, a student of BS (Honors) in Media Studies, delivered an inspiring speech and said she was hopeful that the graduates would earn accolades at home and abroad. IoBM’s graduating class of 2019 included 14 gold medallists and 45 recipients of merit certificates, which was the largest graduating batch of the institute since its inception in 1996.

Among the graduates were; 309 BBA, 116 MBA (Regular), seven PhDs, 17 MPhil and seven MSc candidates. IoBM’s Sabina Mohsin, Dr Syed Irfan Hyder, rector Prof Dr Amanat Ali Jalbani, dean of CBM, Board of Governors, deans, management, HoDs, faculty, staff and parents attended the convocation.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2019