SWABI, Feb 13: Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro said that female students joining engineering profession should be encouraged because they had capabilities to arm themselves with different disciplines and they could play a constructive role in the nation-building process.

He was speaking at the concluding ceremony of the International Parliamentary Debates at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology on Monday.

The event was organized by the Literary and Debating Society (LDS) of the Institute and three Indian teams also participated in the competition.

Salim Saifullah Khan, Federal Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination, also attended the ceremony.

Appreciating the active participation of women students in the contest, Mr Soomro said: “The female students have the potential to excel in different fields. Usually the girls clinched top positions in both boards and universities’ examinations.”

He stressed the need for equipping the young generation with the latest technologies and skills so as to broaden the base of knowledge-based economy.

In fact, he said, debates inculcated the spirit of competition in the debaters/ audience. Debates also stimulated creativity and bred a process of generating result-oriented ideas, he said.

“The debaters open new vistas of opportunities for themselves. The youth are future builders and they should be encouraged to organize debate contests,” he said.

“You may be excellent in isolation but it might not be beneficial to you. Participation in the debates could discover the secret capabilities of the youngsters.”

He said it was really remarkable that this event not only attracted debaters from all over the country but also from India, thus making it a regional event.

“I am especially pleased to see students from India, who have come all the way to Topi to participate in debates,” he said.

About the rector’s demand to increase fund for the institute and scholarships for students of the Sindh province, Mr Soomro said: “The government would provide every possible support to the GIK Institute.”

Speaking on the occasion, Salim Saifullah Khan said participation in the debates could encourage the students to become prominent leaders in future. The learning of communication skills is vital for leaders. History tells us that great leaders were outstanding communicators,” he said.

The rector of the institute, Dr Abdullah Sadiq, said that in a short span of 13 years of its existence the institute had contributed in several ways to engineering education and research and development in the country. Recently, the institute had become eligible for up to 50 per cent of development grants of Higher Education Commission, he said. The federal government should treat GIKI as a public-private partnership, making it eligible for full development grants.

Manu Saxena, Prabhpal Singh Grewal and Abhinav Sharman of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, won the English debate contest and the team of the Government College University, Lahore, emerged victorious in the Urdu debate.

Daniyal Asad of the Agha Khan University of Karachi bagged the best English speaker award and the best Urdu award went to Hamza Ijaz of the Government College University, Lahore.

Mr Soomro gave away trophies to the winners.