LAHORE: The overall student strength of the Government College University, Lahore, has increased from 6,200 to more than 11,500 in a short span of only three years.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Khaleequr Rahman said on Friday while addressing an inauguration ceremony of a two-storey new building of the university’s examination branch which comprises state-of-the-art examination rooms, offices, classrooms and seminar rooms.

He said the new building would fulfill the needs of the GCU Examination Department for the next 10 decades, adding that it was the first building which was constructed by the GCU from its own resources.

He said the university had initiated 26 new postgraduate programmes, including three doctoral programmes, since July 2011, which was unprecedented.

Prof Rahman said they were also concentrating on the infrastructural development of the university to provide adequate facilities to students and faculty members.

He said that model reading rooms for students were also being established in all departments of the university.

He said the foundation of building was made strong enough to build another two storeys.

The vice-chancellor said he had increased number of student seats on open merit in all academic programmes but still they were facing extreme pressure of admissions.

He said more than 5,000 applications were received for a couple of hundred seats of BS (computer sciences) and same was the situation with their all academic programmes.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2014