KARACHI, Aug 23: Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad presiding over a high-level meeting on Monday said that proposals of development projects for overall improvement in teaching system of public sector universities should be reviewed from all aspects and after making necessary amendments the same should be submitted to the Higher Education Commission within a week.

The development projects worth Rs30 billion for overall improvement of public sector varsities came under consideration at the meeting, attended HEC Chairman Dr Ataur Rehman, Principal Secretary Akhtar Zamin, Executive Director Officer (Higher Education) Sohail Naqvi, Additional Secretary Universities Major (retd) Aftab Lodhi and vice-chancellors of public sector universities in Sindh.

Under the very programme, each university will be provided three billion rupees for major development programmes which they will use within five years to attain modern and international standards.

The vice-chancellors gave briefings to the governor separately about the details of PC-I, prepared for acquisition of grants to improve teaching and research facilities of their respective university.

The meeting discussed the projects submitted by each varsity separately and presented their suggestions for further improvement. The governor directed all the vice-chancellors to remove shortcomings in their proposed projects and submit the same to the HEC within a week.

He expressed hope that all the universities would fully benefit from the Rs30 billion project and use the given funds transparently. He issued directives for especially incorporating the infrastructure improvement, libraries, laboratories, transport, IT network, faculty housing, sports and programmes for providing facilities to teachers and students under the project.

Dr Ibad said that President Musharraf was giving immense attention towards promotion of education at all levels, bringing it at par with international standards and make them beneficial for society.

He said that Rs30 billion allocation for bringing improvement in universities spoke about his (president's) personal interest in the matter. He also appreciated the efforts of Dr Ataur Rehman in this respect.

He asked the participants of the meeting to give special preference to development of human resource and faculty and emphasised upon adopting a line of action to double the enrolment in three years as well as registering 50 PhD students in every department of all the varsities every year.

Stressing on enhancing the quality of research, he said that the thesis of every student should be approved from foreign scholars before awarding PhD degree. The governor emphasised upon bringing the medical, engineering, agriculture and other varsities in commensuration with the country's overall development vision and asked every university to bring improvement in their particular departments as centres of excellence.

Referring to the growing terrorism in society, he underscored the important role of universities for its redressal. He said that universities could point out the factors behind terrorism, which had gained roots in society, and give recommendations for their elimination.

He asked the vice-chancellors to formulate university programmes keeping in view the requirements of society and future job market. The governor also issued directive to the universities for bringing regularity in the inspections of colleges and affiliated institutes. The meeting decided to set up a monitoring cell in order to ensure the attainment of better results from the Rs30 billion project. -APP/PPI