By Uzma Zafar
ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Tuesday urged the universities to increase the quantum of online education and focus on research and innovation to promote quality education in the country. He said that the universities needed to shape their vision in a way to prepare students to cope with challenges of the fast changing world.
The President gave these remarks during a briefing on National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad, here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr. Rector NUML Major General (retd) Muhammad Jaffer gave a presentation about the role of university in promotion of education in the country.
The Rector NUML highlighted that 22,000 students were enrolled in various programmes of the university and over 77,000 had graduated from it. He informed that the university had awarded scholarships to students, including the persons with disabilities, amounting to Rs. 340 million during the fiscal year 2020-21.
Appreciating the role of universities in the educational development of the country, the President emphasized that higher education institutions required to produce intellectually supreme graduates to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
He asked the management of the university to establish an IT Department to provide the youth with employable skills so that they could contribute to the nation’s economic development. The president also appreciated the performance of NUML University in the fields of research and publications in different languages.
Separately, President Dr Arif Alvi Tuesday said the government was taking steps to build information highways and extend reach of the people to new fourth generation technologies. Speaking at an international conference on innovation and entrepreneurship here, he said the goal of present government was to improve digital financial system, achieve women empowerment and ensure economic transparency.
He said Pakistan was making great progress with the use of emerging technologies. He noted that Pakistan was left behind during the industrial revolution. In the fourth information technology revolution, the communication and spread of information had become very fast, he said adding the world was now witnessing the advent of fifth generation revolution.
He mentioned that immense information was accumulated by the world through cloud computing. Youth could gain advantage by gathering information and through innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, he added. He said the government was making efforts to attain one hundred percent literacy in the country and impart skills to the people who could not get education.
