LAHORE: International social policy analyst and expert on population ageing Professor Dr Asghar Zaidi on Thursday assumed charge of the post of Government College University’s (GCU) vice chancellor (VC) with a pledge to hone the university’s research and education potential, improve its international outlook and enhance academic excellence, linkages and prestige.
Professor Zaidi, who holds a PhD in economics from the world’s top university i.e. University of Oxford, is in the first instance appointed for a tenure of four years by the Punjab government on the recommendation of the Search Committee vice chancellor headed by eminent academician Professor Dr Khalid Aftab.
The university’s faculty and staff accorded a warm welcome to Professor Zaidi as he arrived at the university to assume charge of his new assignment.
Senior teachers at the educational institution said that Professor Zaidi had brought with him a vast experience of working and teaching at the world’s top universities. They rated this appointment as a good fortune for the GCU as a person of his calibre had decided to return to his homeland and serve his alma mater and hoped that his appointment would help in the internationalisation of the varsity.
Zaidi, 56, has been working for the last thirty years with different distinguished European and United Nation’s organisations and universities in the UK and the Netherlands, including London School of Economics (LSE) and University of Oxford.
He has recently served as the professor of social gerontology at the Seoul National University, a public university in Korea ranked 36 in the World QS Ranking 2019. He has also been a visiting professor at LSE and a senior research fellow at Oxford. He has exceptional academic credentials with several reputed books and articles published in the top ranked journals to his credit.
In 2019, the government of Shanghai awarded him the prestigious 1,000 foreign experts scholarship and he also became an adjunct professor at the Shanghai University.
He is also a world expert in the field of population ageing and have recently published reports in collaboration with the Ministry of Human Rights Pakistan the British Council Islamabad and Alzheimer’s Pakistan.
Talking to the university’s teachers, Professor Zaidi said that GCU had great potential and they would jointly work day and night to bring it at par with the top universities of Asia. He said that it is a matter of great pride for him, like any other old Ravian, to serve this institution of highest prestige in Pakistan.
