ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has called upon the universities to focus on research and development activities to produce quality and skilled manpower, which was needed for expeditious socio-economic development of the country.
The president stated that hiring qualified, committed and professional faculty was of paramount importance for imparting the latest knowledge and for the intellectual development of the graduates.
The president made these remarks while chairing a follow-up meeting on the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad at Aiwan-e-Sadr on Wednesday.
He emphasised that universities should adopt innovative and creative techniques to increase the number of students and graduates by adopting hybrid and online teaching methodologies. He emphasised that all stakeholders in the education sector should further improve their intellectual and psychological skill set, and embrace policies, rules and regulations compatible with the market-driven needs of educational institutions and the students to meet the exponentially increasing market demand for skilled human resources, especially in the IT sector.
The president said that education was the biggest resource for socio-economic development, therefore, we should train and educate our youth both female and male to empower them financially and economically.
He expressed his concern over the brain drain witnessed by the country in the previous years. He underscored that we should also make all possible efforts to keep our educated youth within the country by providing equitable opportunities so that they could serve as the engine of growth for the economy and socio-economic development of the country.
The president emphasized that as per the requirement of the market, universities should offer two years Associate Degree Courses or appropriate diploma courses for those sectors where the market needed an immediate inflow of trained and educated human resources, like the IT sector where the demand was increasing exponentially as compared to the number of our graduates
The president highlighted the importance of learning international languages which, he said, provided means for enriching insight and wisdom through literature, science and other knowledge produced in these languages.
Major General Muhammad Jaffer (retd), Rector NUML, briefed the president on various initiatives and educational programs introduced by the University. He stated that currently, NUML was teaching more than 21 national and international languages. He added that it had over 22,818 students, 77,176 alumnae, 1,384 faculty members, and around 915 administrative staff.
Moreover, NUML has nine regional campuses in Quetta, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Peshawar and Gwadar, whereas, it also has an international campus in Urumqi, China.
He also emphasized the need for regulators to come forward and bring solutions to increase the number of students to meet the growing market demands.
The president appreciated the role of NUML in the promotion of education in the country, especially the learning of international languages.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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