HARIPUR: University of Haripur (UoH) vice-chancellor Prof Anwarul Hasan Gilani has said that the Higher Education Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has awarded the varsity with the “Outstanding Quality Assurance Award-2021” in recognition of its progressive academic achievements and imparting quality education.

Speaking to mediapersons during a briefing here on Sunday, he said the inclusion of five faculty members from UoH in Stanford’s list of top two per cent scientists in the world was an evidence of its progress among the emerging universities. He said that when he took over the charge in March 2019 about two-thirds of the university’s employees were on contract and it was facing budget deficit of Rs31m.

“Now, over 90 per cent of the varsity employees are working on a regular basis,” he said and added that because of the merit-based policy the UOH attracted high-caliber faculty from all over Pakistan and abroad.

Prof Gilani said that at present the students’ strength stood at 5,600 showing over 100 per cent increase in the last two and a half years. He said the UOH offered 22 PhD and 50 undergraduate programmes, and was now financially stable with an over Rs30 million surplus budget, which enabled it to establish Rs11 million endowment fund.

He said that GP Fund and pension fund had been systematically invested in an organised manner where the value of the pension fund had reached Rs275 million. The VC said that the university’s own resource income had increased from Rs261 million to Rs465m while it had secured Rs1.45bn PC-I from the federal government for two academic blocks, central library, three hostels and other projects.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2021