KARACHI: Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair has said that quality higher education was the basis for prosperity in every sphere of life and that it promotes an era of accelerated progress for any country.
This he said while addressing the national research programme for universities award distribution ceremony at the Governor House here on Friday.
Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed and the vice-chancellors of various universities also attended the programme.
The Sindh governor said that education imparts values such as knowledge, wisdom, and recognition to a person and it guides and leads such person towards a path of success.
Higher education and research play a fundamental role in building resources and promoting talent, he added.
Research is the most vital ingredient of any development recipe as it not only provide the solutions to existing problems but also opens new avenues of knowledge and learning, said the Sindh governor.
Availability of modern labs, high-tech testing equipment and regularly upgraded IT networks are essentials components of research and productivity, he opined.
Education does not only prepare a person to face the world with utmost courage but also enrich him with the qualities such as tolerance, patience, and co-existence, he said.
“It was unfortunate that intolerance has reached to a level in our society that we are prepared to forcibly impose our thoughts and ideology on others,” he observed and said that promotion of quality higher education could end that sort of behaviour.
Many youngsters prefer to go the United States for higher education only for the reason that it encourages research at every level, he said.
While lauding the role of Higher Education Commission in promoting research at universities, the Sindh governor said that it was commendable effort of HEC that the published research papers of Pakistanis which were only 800 in 2002, reached to 12,000 during last year.
He said that future of a nation heavily depends on quality and competence of the human resource. There was an urgent need to prepare curriculum according to the new research in various fields of science and arts to produce competent and capable human resource, he added.
He also urged upon the universities to prioritise research oriented education not only to resolve country’s problems but also to prepare youth for competing successfully at international level.
He said that “we all have to promote and showcase the positive activities being carried out on all fronts, as it would depict a soft image of Pakistan to the international community.”
The role of media was very pivotal in this regard as people get motivated and inspired by the reporting of events, he observed.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed highlighted the achievements and goals of the commission to promote research-based education.
Later, the Sindh governor distributed awards to faculty members of various public and private sector universities for their research projects.
The University of Karachi secured 20 awards while Sindh University and Aga Khan University were awarded 12 and 10 grants, respectively.